The Butterfly Effect
by Philo Vance
Summary: Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter are both starting their first year in Hogwarts, and a chance meeting aboard the Hogwarts Express forever changes the wizarding world in the most curious fashion.
1. A Study in Scarlet

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor do I own Sherlock Holmes. **

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><p>The door of the compartment slid open and a dark haired boy came in. He did not so much as look at Harry—much less utter a word—before letting his body fall against his seat, putting his arms behind his head and seemingly falling asleep.<p>

Harry could not see the face of the boy clearly enough, as his hat covered most of his face. From his height, Harry figured he should be a first year like himself. He wondered why the boy wore wizard robes instead of changing while on the train, and found himself voicing that question.

"Were we supposed to be wearing our robes before we got on the train?" Harry asked, regretting his question as soon as it had been asked. He feared waking somebody up would not make a good first impression.

"I don't think so." The boy spoke without making a single movement, not even shifting his hat to look at Harry. Harry wondered if he was just pretending to be asleep to avoid talking and regretted opening his mouth even more so than before. But before his regret could catch up with his brain, he found himself asking, "Then why are you wearing a robe?"

"Because it's more practical. That way I don't have to change in the train."

"But don't Muggles get suspicious when they see someone in robes like that?"

The boy sneered and though Harry couldn't see his face, he caught glimpse of a smirk the hat just barely failed to hide. "Do you know what people do when they see something that strikes them as unusual and with no reasonable explanation?"

Harry shook his head.

"Nothing at all," said the boy cheerfully. "They do nothing at all."

"Did you use magic?" asked Harry.

The boy didn't reply immediately, which Harry took as a sign of surprise.

"I mean, you can't see my face right? Your hat is covering your eyes," said Harry. "But you still knew I had shaken my head. So that's why I'm asking if you used magic." Harry felt dumb for asking what could be an obvious question, but his curiosity was stronger than his fear of sounding stupid.

"I don't need magic to read minds," the other boy responded calmly.

"And thanks to that, we had a very productive term last year, isn't that right Fred?"

"Indeed we had."

The twins who had helped Harry were back.

"I see you have met our friend Harry," said one of the twins, "he acts like a bit pain in the butt, but if you give him a chance and see through that mask, you'll see that he's actually a huge pain in the butt."

"One we are thankful for having," said the other twin in a heroic tone, looking at an imaginary sunset in the train. "I don't believe we have introduced ourselves last time. We are George and Fred Weasley. If you don't know which one of us is which, feel free to call us Gred and Forge." He then shifted his head towards the boy who was still pretending to be asleep. "And this fine gentleman about to regret ignoring you once he finds out who you are is—"

"I'm not going to regret anything because I already know it." The boy spoke not with anger, but with something Harry thought was mild annoyance. "He's Harry Potter."

"How did you—"began Harry, before being interrupted.

"Harry Potter would be eligible to enter Hogwarts this year, judging from his age. You were unsure about attracting attention from Muggles, which meant you weren't sure how the magic world functioned. But despite that you have a lot of wizard money—I can tell by the sound your pockets make—which makes it unlikely for you to be Muggle-born, given how little Muggle money is worth these days when exchanging wizard money plus the limits they place on how much money you can exchange per month. That meant you had to have inherited money from a magical background while being raised by Muggles your entire life. No wealthy pure-blooded or mixed orphans are supposed to enter Hogwarts this year besides Harry Potter as far as my brother's painfully accurate information network says. So you are Harry Potter." The boy spoke rapidly, but without stumbling. His facts were precise and simple, to the point where his logic seemed obvious once explained.

"You got all that," Harry repeated incredulously, "from the sound my pockets made?"

"That's him all right," said one of the twins chuckling. "We would love to stay and explain how his mind works, but Lee Jordan has got a tarantula that we need to see. See ya later."

"Bye," said Harry. The twins slid the compartment door shut behind them.

Harry couldn't stop himself from asking, "Who are you?"

The boy smirked once more, and got up with one swift movement. Taking off his hat, Harry took note of his pale face, his condescending yet distinctively kind smirk, and most strikingly of it all, the sheer amount of confidence displayed in every feature of his expression. It wasn't the arrogance Dudley so often displayed. It was different.

"Holmes," he said proudly. "Sherlock Holmes."

"Are you from a family of wizards?" asked Harry.

"Yes."

Seeing that Sherlock would not volunteer any information about himself so easily, Harry decided to pursue it more thoroughly. It occurred to him that maybe if he talked about himself a bit, Sherlock would follow him. "I don't know what living with wizards is like, but it must be better than living with Muggles. Well, at least the Muggles I lived with. They hated me. They hated magic and anything abnormal, to be honest. I—"

"If they really hated you," said Sherlock. "You probably wouldn't have noticed. Hatred is not a particularly dramatic emotion. They must have liked you to some degree, which is why they hated you."

"I'm sorry?" Harry asked, confused. He was pretty sure the Dursleys hated him.

"You just said it," said Sherlock, with a tone of someone who explains the obvious. "They hated magic. So they hated you for being connected to magic. If they truly hated you , they wouldn't have raised you."

"Isn't it the same thing in the end?"

Sherlock shook his head. "Acts and motivations are two different things, and they both matter a lot."

The shameful looking boy Harry had passed by a few minutes before came into their cabin following a short, depressing knock. He looked as though the world had given up on him.

"Sorry, he said, "but have you seen a toad at all?"

"Is that how you start all conversations?" asked Sherlock.

"He'll turn up," said Harry.

"And if not," said Sherlock gesturing at small markings on the ground. "Just follow his little wet toad trail. It's not too hard to see if you pay attention to it."

"How could I have not seen that before?" said Neville, sounding more disappointed at himself than happy at the prospect of finding his toad.

"How could anyone have seen it?" asked Harry, dumbfounded.

"We all saw it. You just didn't observe it."

"Is there a difference?" asked Harry confused.

Sherlock's grumble and lack of an answer indicated that yes, there was a difference and he was very much annoyed Harry didn't understand it. Neville thanked Harry, perhaps afraid of thanking Sherlock, for the hint, and went off to find his toad.

Neither of the boys spoke for a while. Harry bought a little of each candy not wanting to miss out on any, and had a mixture of fun and suffering as he ate them. He tried offering a few to Sherlock, but he was still clamming up from earlier and refused to say a word.

Later, when the silence was slowly but surely becoming unbearable and Harry found himself really wanting to have someone to talk to, a knock on the door gave him his wishes in the form of a first-year girl, also wearing her Hogwarts robes.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville went out of the cabin to look for his and hasn't come back yet."

"Yes—well no, but we saw Neville. We told him to follow the toad's trail. It's hard to see, but it's there," said Harry, but the girl wasn't listening. She was staring at the pile of candy wraps sitting beside Harry with an unbelieving look on her face, as if she couldn't understand how a person could make such a big mess by himself.

"I'm sorry," Harry apologized. "I ended up buying more than I could eat. Would you like some?"

"Well," she hesitated, "Neville is still looking for his Toad right?"

Harry nodded. "He knows how to find him now."

"Then I suppose it wouldn't be a problem to stay here for a while," she said as she sat beside Harry. "I'm Hermione Granger."

"I'm Harry Potter, and he is Sherlock Holmes."

"Are you really?" said Hermione. "I know all about you, of course—I got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in many of them!"

"Am I?" said Harry, unsure whether she was serious or not.

"Yes you are," said Sherlock, breaking his vow of silence. "I suppose I should thank you for getting rid of Voldemort. That was nice of you."

"I thought people normally didn't say his name out loud," said Hermione. "Did I make a mistake?" Hermione seemed really anxious about having made a mistake.

As far as Harry could tell, she hadn't made a mistake and he informed her as much. It felt nice to share the feeling of not understanding how the world was supposed to work with someone.

"Normally, people with a magical background don't say his name," said Sherlock, "you are correct."

"But you just said it," said Hermione. "Don't you have a magical background? I have read the name Holmes before as well. Your father—"

"Yes, I have a magical background."

"But you just said it," Hermione repeated, growing annoyed at him.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow at her, apparently not understanding what she was having difficulty with.

"Yes, people don't normally do what I do. What's your point?"

Before she could make her point known, there was one more knock at the door and this time it was not about a toad, but about Harry. Three boys came in, and Harry knew who one of them was at once. It was the particularly vicious boy he had met at the Diagon Alley. It seemed as if he intended on asking a question about Harry, as he looked at him for a few seconds and managed to get out a few syllables before cutting himself short.

The reason for the boy's change of plans seemed to be that he had seen something that shocked him far more than Harry's presence, and that something was waving at him with a sadistic smile on his face.

"Hello Draco Malfoy!" said Sherlock. "It's been almost a month! How did that dinner go once I left?"

Draco instantly adopted an expression of both disgust and shock. Then, with great effort, he turned to Harry.

"If you aren't careful about the people you are with, you will end up just like your parents." He shot Sherlock a disgusted look. "Or worse. Much worse. "

The three boys immediately left the cabin, leaving behind a very confused Hermione and a very confused Harry, who both looked at Sherlock awaiting an explanation and then at each other once it became clear no explanation would be given.

"Not very pleasant, those three," said Harry.

"I heard they were no good before but I wasn't expecting that," said Hermione. "But fortunately Sherlock's presence seems to have been enough to make them run away."

"Yes, I have that effect on scum," Sherlock agreed in a solemn tone that contradicted his mocking words. Harry wasn't sure if he was joking or simply stating the matter as he saw."The Malfoy family has been linked with Voldemort before, famously think that pure-blooded wizards are better than all others and most importantly, I don't like them. So stay away from them."

"No need to say it twice," said Harry.

"The train should be arriving at Hogwarts soon," noted Sherlock. "So I'd advise you to leave while Harry here gets changed, unless you want to stay for that."

Hermione blushed, then quickly turned around to leave the cabin.

"I don't think you had to be rude to her," said Harry. He didn't particularly like the way he treated her and he wasn't sure he liked Sherlock's attitude in general either.

"I don't think I had to be rude either," Sherlock agreed cheerfully.

At that moment, it came to Harry that Sherlock Holmes was quite simply not a reasonable person. He wasn't like Dudley, who had been spoiled to the point of not knowing the difference between right and wrong. He was someone who knew fully well the difference between right and wrong, someone who understood how social norms were supposed to play out and above all he was someone who simply did not care for any of that. He was insane.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

Due to a long list of reasons that would take a really, really long time to explain, Ron Weasley does not exist for the purposes of this story, as Sherlock has been inserted in a way to "replace" him.


	2. The Sorting Hat

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Sherlock Holmes. Though the character Sherlock Holmes is public domain depending on where you live.

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><p>The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face and Harry's very first thought was that this was not someone to defy. His second thought was that Sherlock obviously thought differently, for he had adapted an expression Harry had often seen Dudley display when trying to focus on a particularly challenging video game.<p>

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here."

She pulled the door wide. Harry couldn't help but note all of Sherlock's reactions to the wondrous image presented before them, wanting to know how someone from a family of wizards would react to it, wanting to fit in.

There was little question however that Sherlock was not a good example of normality.

While everyone looked from left to right in order to keep admiring the gargantuan entrance hall and its flaming torches illuminating even the seemingly transparent ceiling and the magnificent staircase that led to the upper floors, Sherlock merely glanced at them, then continued to look straight ahead.

To someone like Harry, who had grown up with the extremely self-centered and materialistic Dursleys, it was not the magical objects that defied his sense of reality, but rather Sherlock's complete detachment from reality that struck him as otherworldly. He watched everything with a look that couldn't be described as neither interested nor uninterested. Sherlock simply took everything in the same way the audience doesn't see events the same way an active actor in the play does, even when both looking at the same scene.

"The rest of the school must already be here," said Hermione. "I can hear their voices."

Smiling like a child on Christmas, Sherlock raised his arm excitedly as if waiting to be given permission by the teacher to answer a question.

"Another good thing to note is that the rest of the school also has two functional eyes," said Sherlock. Then, his childish, maniacal grin turned to a depressed one. "Wait, we aren't competing to see who can list the obvious more? I'm sorry, in that case I apologize for appearing to be excited. I'm in fact quite disappointed at your lack of intell―"

"Is there a problem?" asked Professor McGonagall.

"Absolutely," responded Sherlock happily. "But rest assured that none of the problem I'm making can either get me a detention or lose house points, as I technically don't belong to any house yet."

McGonagall would probably have warned him further, but there were more important things to address. Hermione shot Harry an angry look, as if he were responsible for Sherlock.

"Speaking of houses, I believe this point must be addressed. The sorting ceremony will take place shortly, where we will place you in one of the four houses. Your house will be like your family during your stay in Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room.

"The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin―ah yes, Holmes?" she said once she noticed his hand raised high up in the air.

"Which house is the best one?"

McGonagall opened her mouth slightly, clearly not wanting to lose her composure but finding it difficult to do so. When she spoke, her voice was so calm it sent a chill down Harry's spine.

"There is no best house, Holmes."

"Is there a worst house then?"

This time, McGonagall hesitated and Harry thought he had caught a glimpse of a victorious smirk on Sherlock's face, but a moment later he decided he must have imagined it, for it had been replaced by a serious expression.

"There is no worse house either, Mr. Holmes. Simply allow the sorting hat to decide what house you are in and make your house proud by helping it win the house cup, a great honor. Is it clear?"

Sherlock nodded. Hesitantly, McGonagall left them at an empty chamber where they would await to be called. As soon as she could no longer hear them, Hermione voiced her complaints.

"Are you trying to get expelled before the year even starts?"

"If that's all it takes to get expelled," said Sherlock, shrugging. "I might as well get expelled now if that's the case, because I certainly won't last seven years."

But Harry wasn't listening to their fight. He had swallowed nervously a couple times in a row now and was tired of waiting for their seemingly never-ending argument to end.

"How exactly do they sort us into houses?" he asked them.  
>Hermione bit her lip.<p>

"I wasn't able to get a clear answer out of any of my books. If I had more time to prepare―"

"They put a magical hat on your head that reads your mind and decides your destiny," said Sherlock nonchalantly, seemingly picking his words for maximum dramatic effect.

"How did you know?" asked Hermione, not able to hide a hint of admiration in her voice.

"I'm a genius," he responded. "But I also have an older brother who has come to Hogwarts. As had many other people in the train. For someone so eager to learn, you aren't very good at extracting information from people, are you?"

It was obvious that Hermione had been hurt by the question, because she turned her back to the pair and paced towards the exact opposite end of the room.

"What did I say?" asked Sherlock to Harry.

"You said she wasn't good at making friends," said Harry. "People don't take that well."

"Why not? It's the truth."

Harry stared in disbelief at Sherlock for a few seconds, unable to comprehend how someone could think like that. Sherlock stared at him as well, probably for the same reason. At that moment, Harry and Sherlock realized they had found in each other what they needed the most. Their complete opposite.

Harry rather appreciated Sherlock's lack of tact. It distracted him from his nervousness about the house selection.

The sorting hat had been placed on top of a seating stool, and quickly produced an inspiring song about the four houses. Harry was hanging on its every word, attempting to gain any extra bit of knowledge about the houses, until he saw Sherlock's bored gaze.

"Sherlock," Harry whispered, hoping not to be noticed while the song played.

"What is the best house?"

"You heard McGonagall. There is no best House."

"I'm not asking McGonagall though," he said.

Sherlock's eyebrow was raised slightly, indicating he was pleased with the amount of respect Harry had bestowed upon him.

"Gryffindor," he responded simply. "It's the best one. Ravenclaw is the one my brother belongs to, so I don't want to go there."

Harry did not ask about the other two houses, even though he wanted to. He had only known Sherlock for a few hours, but that had been long enough to know that he did not ever forget to elaborate on something. If he was reticent about it, then there was nothing to be said.

The song had ended, and Professor McGonnagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. "Abbot, Hannah!"

"Hufflepuff," Sherlock murmured.

Harry looked at Sherlock, surprised, as the girl rushed toward the hat. A moment's pause―

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat.

The table on the right erupted into applause as she rushed towards the table and sat down. Harry turned to Sherlock, laughing in astonishment.

"How did you do that?"

"If I explain it, it stops being impressive," Sherlock grinned.

"No, it won't, I promise you," said Harry. "I'm just very curious."

"She was eyeing the Hufflepuff table for some time."

"But what if the hat just didn't think she was fit to be a Hufflepuff?"

Sherlock smirked, with the wickedness only an eleven year old could possess.

"Harry, if she wasn't fit to be a Hufflepuff, then what would she be fit for? Gamekeeper apprentice?"

"Are Hufflepuffs a joke?"

"Not really, no," lamented Sherlock. "Jokes are generally funny."

Harry did not have time to question Sherlock about his apparent dislike for Hufflepuff, for something else caught his attention.

"Granger, Hermione!"

"GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the hat. Sherlock groaned.

"Perhaps you ought to forget what I said about it being the best house," he  
>said thoughtfully.<p>

"Holmes, Sherlock!"

Shrugging, he walked up towards the hat. Unlike most students, he did not run towards it, nor did he move extraordinary slowly as if he dreaded it. He simply walked up to it in a reasonable pace, and picked it up.

"Would you announce Gryffindor already yes?" he asked the hat just before he put it on, loudly enough to provoke some giggles from the Gryffindor table.

"GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the hat, making the giggles change into hysteric cheers.

As he clapped, Harry couldn't help but feel his stomach sink. He had grown very attached to Gryffindor within the past minutes after seeing Hermione, who like him had no previous knowledge of the wizarding world, and Sherlock, who was a curious but clever individual both be selected to the House. As he saw Draco Malfoy be selected into Slytherin, his stomach sank even further. Regardless of what McGonagall said, perhaps there were houses worse than others.

"Potter, Harry!"

As soon as Harry stepped forward, the whispers reminded him of what Holmes detachment from reality had made him forget. He was a famous wizard, even if he did not remember what had made him famous.

"Gryffindor, please," Harry thought as hard as he could.

_"Gryffindor, heh?" said a small voice in his hear. "Wishing to be brave, are you? That is an interesting choice. If you are sure…then perhaps that could be arranged. But I see a great deal of potential in you. Talent too, yes… . You could really benefit from Slytherin, that you could. No? Well then, if you insist…_

"GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the hat.

Harry heard the hat shout the last word to the whole hall. He took off the hat and walked toward the Gryffindor table. He was very much relieved that he had been sorted into the same House as Sherlock and Hermione―he was particularly pleased he had been sorted at all, having previously been afraid of being told to be unfit to even be at Hogwarts. Percy the Prefect shook his hand, while the twins seemingly congratulated Sherlock about having accomplished something, though Harry could not discern what it was. Harry felt it would be better if he didn't know. Hermione waved at him from the other side of the table, the happiness of being sorted overshadowing her anger by proxy from earlier. He wished they were sitting closer together.

Albus Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there. Harry couldn't help but notice the look on Sherlock's face. It was similar to the one he had given McGonagall, but much fiercer and with more respect. As curious as he was, Harry did not ask him about the expression he had, suspecting Sherlock was not aware of how pleased he seemed to be at the moment.

"Welcome!" said Dumbledore. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

"Thank you!"

He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Harry didn't know  
>whether to laugh or not for a second, until he noticed Sherlock was the one clapping and cheering the loudest. This made him far more confused.<p>

"Is there something wrong with him?" he asked Sherlock uncertainly.

"Everything,," said Sherlock solemnly. "And that is why he is so amazing. Don't try to understand him, just think of him as a force of nature. Ah look, food Harry, food!"

Harry's jaw dropped. The feast in front of him was like nothing he had ever seen before. There were so many different types of food he could only attribute (and thank) magic for it. He had never been able to eat as much as he wanted with the Dursleys before. It was with a smile he began to eat, each bite reminding him he was no longer going to live that life. He was now going to get used to eating as much as he wanted, and watching Sherlock surprise ghosts as he told them exactly how they died with his eyes closed. It was quite the strange trick.

As dinner went on, some talked about their families, some talked about  
>classes and some talked about both. Percy Weasley, the prefect, talked with obviously uninterested Sherlock about his brother.<p>

"I thought you would be in Ravenclaw, like Mycroft. But I'm glad you came to Gryffindor. Now we are almost all together. If only Mycroft had stayed with us...but this is good too, this ended up with both me and him as prefects. Looking forward to seeing how you can help the house."

But Sherlock didn't seem to care much about Gryffindor.

"Is transfiguration really as interesting as you said it was over the summer?"

"Yes, in the beginning you―"

Harry stopped paying attention then, but not before noticing how the challenging notion of a hard subject to master had made Sherlock's eyes shine with excitement. Little after, he felt a sharp pain on his forehead, and was quickly informed by Percy he was looking at Professor Snape. Feeling too overwhelmed by the party, he did not press for more information.

At last, the desserts too disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The hall fell silent, and not even Sherlock or the twins dared to speak.

"First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well. I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.

"Quiddich trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their House teams should contact Madam Hooch.

"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of the bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."

Harry wanted to laugh, but found himself unable to do so as he saw Sherlock's absolutely maniacal smirk when he heard those words.

"Percy, does Dumbledore usually explain why we are not allowed to go somewhere?"

Percy nodded.

"Yes, he usually does so."

"How interesting," said Sherlock, smiling with a happiness so genuine it bordered on innocence.

This smile was so innocent Harry took notice it wasn't―it could be―real, in one way or another.

"Why are you smiling?" asked Harry.

"Because I don't have the faintest idea of what Dumbledore is talking about."

It would be a few months until Harry understood what Sherlock meant.

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><p><strong>A few notes for this chapter. First I'd like to say that I'm writing Holmes based on the original Conan Doyle canon, but trying to account for the fact he is eleven years old after all. I'm also taking into account both the movie "Young Sherlock Holmes" which featured a terrible plot but a great Holmes, and the recent BBC Sherlock series which is wonderful and offers a great characterization of Holmes.<strong>

**Secondly, I'd like to say I had some trouble deciding whether Holmes was better as a Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, as he loves his intelligence. But as I was re-reading the original canon a bit, I think I have to say Holmes doesn't treasure intelligence so much as intellectual stimulation. He thrives on challenge, he loves the feeling of putting his brain to use. He doesn't do things for curiosity, he likes to put his brain to good use. So with that in mind I think he fits Gryffindor more, as he would be using his intelligence to have fun.**

**Well, that's about it. I appreciate the reviews I got, and would appreciate any reviews again-would love to hear some criticism on how my approach is going, what the readers would like to be implemented, anything like that.**


	3. The Potions Master

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor do I own Sherlock Holmes.

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><p>Harry felt very fortunate to have Sherlock as a friend. Everywhere he went, he attracted an unwanted amount of attention. A sneaky glance, a second too long while passing him a drink during dinner, everything made Harry feel like people were talking about him behind his back. But no one so much as whispered in front of him.<p>

There was only one time a whisper reached his ears, and even then it had only happened because the first-years talking about him hadn't noticed him in the opposite side of the Gryffindor common room.

"That boy with the scar, is he-"

"He's Potter!"

"And who is the one always walking with him?"

"That's Holmes." Harry noticed a slight tremor in the man's tone when he mentioned Sherlock's name. "I guess it makes sense for them to be friends."

Why it made sense for them to be friends, Harry didn't know. He also didn't know why the first-year seemed to be so_careful_ about Sherlock. At first, he had thought they were afraid of him, but that wasn't the case.

People didn't avoid him outright, but they seemed to hesitate around him a bit, for which Harry was thankful. It stopped people from talking about his scar so long as he was with Sherlock.

To thank him for it, Harry never brought up the fact that people seemed to be careful about Sherlock, nor did he ever ask him for it. He quickly learned that while Sherlock was a great companion, there were things he simply would not talk about.

As curious as he was about his friend, Harry did not spend too much of his time wondering about him. He was thankful Sherlock respected him enough not to ask about Voldemort and felt like he should extend the same kindness towards him.

It wasn't just respect that stopped him from questioning Sherlock. He was also having too much fun to worry about it. For the first time in his life, he had a friend. It was a great sensation to just wander around the halls for hours, discovering secrets and laughing.

They explored much of Hogwarts in a short period of time. Sherlock was dead set on finding out as much about the castle as possible, for reasons he couldn't fully explain but that Harry completely understood. He simply wanted to know. He wanted to know everything and so did Harry. They found out(or thought they did) how many staircases the castle had, how many steps each staircase had, how many doors each floor had, among other things.

Harry was sure he would have gotten lost looking for classes if it weren't for Sherlock. It was really hard to find your way around Hogwarts, but Sherlock seemed to have an extraordinary knack for finding what others didn't.

The ghosts were generally helpful and seemed to be more than happy to help them. At times, it seemed like they knew Sherlock, but not quite. They introduced themselves to the both of them making it clear that it was the first time they had met, but they smiled in a warm, soothing manner that made it seem like they were vaguely aware of Sherlock's existence before. Peeves the Poltergeist seemed like he could be a problem, but Harry was never personally affected by him thanks to Sherlock's strange ability to predict where he would be ahead of time.

The caretaker was a slightly less pleasant existence than Peeves, as he once caught them trying to enter the forbidden corridor on the third floor and would not believe their excuses of being there by mistake. Harry couldn't entirely blame him, as he himself suspected Sherlock had led him there on purpose.

"I made a mistake," said Sherlock as innocently as possible.

But Harry knew better. Sherlock didn't make many mistakes.

"You are a bad liar," said Harry, laughing.

"I'm a very good liar Harry," said Sherlock, smiling at him. "I just don't want to lie to you."

"You don't want to just admit the truth either though."

"I don't deny that."

Harry soon did away with the expression "happened like magic" as he found out that magic was much harder than he expected it. It definitely wasn't as simple as murmuring a few funny sounding words and having things appear in front of you.

It seemed for a while that he would never adapt to this life of going outside the castle at midnight to study stars, but Harry slowly found himself being absorbed by the atmosphere of the place. Every day, he saw unbelievable things that he knew he shouldn't accept as real. But a little voice inside his chest grew louder and louder as the days passed. This is where you belong Harry, said the voice. And he agreed with that voice beating in the left side of his chest.

Even the boring class of history of magic inspired a sense of wonder in him, even if he wasn't aware of it. He was quite aware of how dreadfully boring it was, but he still found himself occasionally paying attention to his ghostly teacher, which was more than most classmates aside from Hermione Granger could say about that class. Some theorized that Professor Bins didn't realize he was actually dead, but that theory was quickly disproved by Sherlock's swift investigation that consisted of asking him that very question.

Sherlock's view towards classes was different in ways Harry couldn't quite rationalize. He never paid attention to Professor Bins, nor did he pay attention to the astrology class. To say he was dedicated to his studies would be wrong, but to say he wasn't was just as wrong. He displayed bursts of energy, sometimes displaying more knowledge about Herbology than Hermione Granger and sometimes being more ignorant than Harry. It seemed like he quite simply ignored absolutely everything that did not interest him, to an almost absurd level.

Luckily for Sherlock, he seemed to be interested in Transfiguration, the subject taught by McGonagall. She seemed strict even with Gryffindor students, warning them about how difficult the art of transfiguration was. While she didn't seem like she didn't like students who didn't have particular talent for the discipline, Harry got the impression she did not have a very high opinion of those who had talent and did not use it correctly. Thankfully, he didn't have to worry about Sherlock angering her, as her demonstration of transforming herself into a cat and back into a human being was enough to make Sherlock's eyes shine in admiration.

"Will we learn how to do that?" he asked excitedly.

McGonagall eyed him curiously for a second.

"It is a very hard process to become an animagus, Mr. Holmes. You need to register and-"

The Professor went on for a while, unaware that Sherlock was no longer listening. He looked down and smirked in a way Harry had come to associate with a sudden burst of interest. As they left the class, Harry could've sworn he had Sherlock mutter _"Imagine the possibilities"_ to himself.  
>What those possibilities were however, Harry wouldn't know for a long time.<p>

At the moment, he had to focus on the class every first-year had been anxiously anticipating ever since receiving their timetable, Defense Against the Dark Arts. As life in the magical world would prove to sometimes be as disappointing as life in the Muggle world, the class was far from entertaining. Professor Quirrel was far from the romanticized idea everyone had of the one who taught such a subject. He was a quirky little man who stuttered frequently and covered his classroom with an unbearable garlic scent. No one paid attention to his class, except for the usual two suspects, Sherlock and Hermione.

But this time, Harry noticed something peculiar. While Hermione was frantically taking notes like she always did, Sherlock was neither taking notes nor staring at the professor with a look of wonder in his face. Instead, he simply stared at him intently without so much as blinking. Harry couldn't place words on what emotion Sherlock was feeling, but he equated it to the expression Hedwig had made whenever she saw a rat.

"What was that?" Harry asked once they left the classroom. Once seeing Sherlock's puzzled expression, he sighed in exasperation. "You were staring at Professor Quirrel the whole class!"

"I have read many books ever since I was a kid Harry." Sherlock didn't look at Harry while he said that. Instead, he increased the pace of his steps, perhaps to make it harder for other people to listen to what he was saying. "I have read a lot about how a certain type of wizard thinks and acts. And...while the description from those books couldn't be more different from what we just saw, the feeling I got was that..."His voice trailed off for a second and he shook his head. When he looked at Harry again, he no longer worn the same serious expression, instead adopting the same cynical smirk Harry had grown used to seeing. "Forget it, Harry. I was just getting carried away with emotions. That's a bad habit. I really need to work on that. If I were to just make conclusions based on emotions, they wouldn't be of much use."

"What is our next class?" asked Harry, feeling it would be better not to press the subject.

"A double dose of Potions with the Slytherins on Friday. If we are lucky, we'll be poisoned to death."

"And if we are not lucky?" asked Harry, now used to Sherlock's cynism.

"Then we might have to listen to Snape. Both the Weasleys and my brother say he's terrible." Sherlock nodded to his own question, as if acknowledging a counterpoint presented by his own brain. "Well, the Weasleys say he's terrible. My brother says he's an unpleasant being and refuses to elaborate much on the subject."

"The Weasleys?" repeated Harry, as Sherlock nonchalantly bumped into Neville Longbottom, causing him to drop all his books at once and then continued to walk without offering to help him.

"They pretty much adopted me and my brother once Voldemort killed my parents," Sherlock responded casually. "It's a big family. Five sons and one daughter. You met the twins in the Hogwarts express."

Harry opened his mouth to respond, but couldn't find the right words. On second thought, he couldn't find any words at all. He wanted to say he was sorry about Sherlock's parents, but he also wanted to express surprise at his apparent connection to the Weasleys. Instead of feelings of empathy or surprise, what he found himself vocalizing was disapproval. Surprisingly, Sherlock seemed pleased with that reaction.

"Do you always just casually mention things like that in conversation?" asked Harry.

Sherlock stopped to think for a second, before answering, "Yes, always."

They laughed, but the laughs would not extend to Friday, when Professor Snape would show why he had such a bad reputation. He called out each student's name with such disdain it was hard to imagine why he had become a teacher. The tone he used for calling out Harry's name didn't have simply disdain, it contained outright hatred. Snape went on to question Harry about things he had absolutely no idea of, but that judging from his fellow Gryffindor's reactions, neither did anyone else. Harry felt his stomach sink when he saw Draco Malfoy smirking arrogantly at him when Snape unfairly took off points from Gryffindor not once, but twice.

Harry didn't have time to be upset about that, because as soon as he left the classroom, he saw Hermione Granger walk up angrily to Sherlock.

"How dare you!"

Seeing that some people were beginning to turn around to see what the fight was about, she lowered her tone, but kept it as angry as she could possibly keep without screaming.

"If I didn't cast that spell on you, there's no question you would have raised your hand up in the hair," said Sherlock, raising his own hand up in the air in a mocking gesture, "which would surely have gotten us to lose a few points and lessen our time learning actual Potions. Snape's moral lectures can get pretty long from what I've heard and I imagine they are more boring than his lectures about Potions."

"You paralysed my arm!" she cried. "I couldn't take notes!"

"Shouldn't you be showing some appreciation? Do you have any idea how hard it is to do a partial body binding spell without being noticed by a teacher?" Sherlock stopped to consider what he had just said. "Then again, I'm fairly sure Snape did see me, he just didn't care. And to be honest I don't think my spell was perfect, you could probably have moved your arm if you tried. You were just too scared to do it."

Noting that Hermione's anger wouldn't go away that easily, Sherlock sighed and then carelessly threw three sheets of paper at her, which she somehow managed to grab all at once, although with some difficulty.

"Keep those. I'm sure you won't have any complaint about their quality," said Sherlock.

Hermione furiously but meticulously inspected the three pages, raising her eyebrow once or twice at some points and finally grunted in what Harry thought was resignation, turned around and walked away loudly enough they could still hear her footsteps a minute later.

"Did you really cast a spell on her?"

"Of course not Harry, I just made her think I did. She was just too afraid to try to move and look stupid in front of the class. I take she thought I was the kind of person who would really do that to her."

"Sherlock, you _are_ the kind of person who would do that to her," said Harry. "Do you have to be that rude to her?"

"We have been over this, Harry. I don't have to."

Harry blinked twice, took off his glasses and then put them back again once he had managed to gather an appropriate response.

"Can't you think about people's feelings once in a while?"

"Feelings are unnecessary Harry," he responded. Then, he tapped Harry's shoulder and signalled for them to walk towards the south exit. "Let's go."

"To where?"

"Hagrid sent you a letter this morning about coming to visit him. Whoever Hagrid is, I responded on your behalf accepting."

Harry opened his mouth to reply, suddenly turned his head to the right, then once more to the left and looked at him puzzled.

"Why would you do that?"

"The fact you are asking yourself why before asking how I did this is worrying," noted Sherlock, "but to answer your question, I was just saving you some time since I knew how you would answer."

Harry shrugged. He was partially offended by having Sherlock decide things for him, but he stayed silent because he knew Sherlock would have a comeback for anything he said. If he wanted to express his disapproval, he would have to carefully think of a way to do so, which he had full intention of doing as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

They both laughed. Harry was used to not having boundaries because of Dudley, but he wasn't used to it being a two-sided road. He appreciated the fact neither had to worry about the other's feelings on a level that most people wouldn't. It was nice, it was easy, it was fun.

As they were leaving the castle to visit Hagrid, Sherlock bumped into an older student and made him drop quite a few books he was carrying. Harry was beginning to get used to that, as Sherlock didn't seem to mind doing that in a rather frequent basis, but this time seemed different. For a reason he couldn't quite explain, Harry found himself rather tense.

"Moste Potente Potions?" asked Sherlock, kneeling down to help the student with his books. "Interesting book."

"It is quite interesting and quite forbidden to show to first-year students," said the student happily. Then, with an eyebrow raised, "Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter, I take it?"

"You would be correct."

They both rose to their feet. The student was quite a bit taller than Sherlock, but Harry could hardly tell from the way they stared at each other. There was something inherently alien in that. The confrontation was far too intense to exist. And yet, it did. An older student shouldn't look at a first-year student like he was his equal, nor should the first-year answer that stare with a similar look that showed he felt the same way. It didn't feel real.

"I heard about what you did during that dinner, Mr. Holmes," said the student, laughing in a strange, low voice. Nothing he said was quite offensive, but the way his words left his lips was so cold Harry liked him less the more he spoke. "Quite an embarrassment for Mr. Malfoy."

"Most people have," he answered calmly. "I don't really know your name though, so I can't say anything about you."

"My friends call me-"

"And what should _I_ call you?"

The student's smile faded for a second, but it quickly returned to his face.

"Call me James."

Harry didn't say a single word during that conversation. He watched James walk away, and when his eyes couldn't follow him through the crowd anymore, he watched Sherlock's face. It slowly changed into the same innocent smile he had showed when Dumbledore spoke of the forbidden corridor. Only this time the smile was even broader.

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><p><em>I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, since this is when I was finally able to really start to deviate a bit from the books. Holmes is a really fun character to write. Now, I feel obligated to state here that while Holmes is acting a bit childish at times, he's eleven. I'm keeping him a bit childish on purpose as I slowly turn him into the Holmes we all know and love. I would love any advice on my writing, characterization, plot structure or anything like that. Thank you for reading, I'll post the next chapter next week!<em>


	4. Flying Lessons

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor do I own Sherlock Holmes.

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><p>They would have left for Hagrid's house at five, if not for Sherlock's insistence to talk to a few students after potions class. It wasn't until he had talked to seven different people about Snape that he felt satisfied enough to leave the castle.<p>

Harry didn't find getting to Hagrid's wooden house particularly hard, but he did find convincing Sherlock not to investigate the forbidden forest just beyond his house to be a quite difficult task. Sherlock was stubborn to the point that Harry found himself thankful to hear a loud, ferocious bark stopped any plans to enter the forbidden forest Sherlock might have had.

"Yer not wastin' any time getting trouble, are you?"

The two of them soon found themselves inside Hagrid's house, drinking what Harry suspected was tea. The dog didn't seem as keen to attack them after seeing that they had been given Hagrid's seal of approval.

"This is Sherlock Holmes," Harry told Hagrid, who seemed pleasantly surprised when he heard that.

"Holmes eh? I knew yer father. Great man he was," he said. After he finished pourin' more tea, Hagrid inspected Sherlock with a nostalgic look. "Old Sherrinford helped us put many Death Eaters in Azkaban. Followers of you-know-who," he added upon seeing Harry's confusion.

"I suppose he did something of the sort," said Sherlock dismissively.  
>Hagrid laughed heartily. "I heard you continued your father's unfinished work with the Malfoys."<p>

Harry nearly spat out his tea. "Sherlock did _what?_"

"Aye," said Hagrid. "Old Sherrinford was a funny man, he knew that Voldemort would be gone soon. Don't ask me how, but he knew. So he started gathering evidence to make sure nobody could go around sayin' they were controlled or anythin'. He got a bunch of evidence, before..." his voice trailed off, glancing nervously at Sherlock.

"Before he was killed," said Sherlock calmly. "My old man was killed the day before Harry here did his magic."

"I'm sorry," said Harry, not knowing what to say.

Sherlock frowned at him. "Are you apologizing for taking too long to defeat the strongest dark wizard of all time? I'd say you were pretty quick considering you were only a year old."

Hagrid laughed, but Harry was mildly offended by Sherlock's sarcasm. Anxious to change the subject, Harry went on.

"Hagrid, what was that about Sherlock continuing his father's work?"

"I saw it in the paper the other day," he said jovially. "Arthur Weasley caught  
>Malfoy with some inappropriate objects. Nothing too big, but it was an embarrassment for him, that's for sure. He joked that his son, Sherlock, had given him the idea. Only it was no joke was it?"<p>

But Sherlock didn't respond. Instead, he seemed to focus on something else Hagrid had said. "His son, eh?"

Noticing the warning symptoms that Sherlock was soon going to lose himself in his thoughts, Harry glanced over the _Daily Prophet_in the hopes of finding something to distract them.

"Hagrid! Someone tried to break into Gringotts the day we went into the vault."

Not only did the topic manage to keep Sherlock from staying quiet throughout the rest of the visit, it made him not stop talking even when Hagrid clearly avoided his questions. His eyes shone with a light Harry had seen once before, when Professor Dumbledore had announced no one was allowed into the hallway in the third-floor.

"Yer reminding me of yer father just a tad too much," said Hagrid sighing.

"Always snooping around..." he shook his head. "I don't know anything other than what's on the paper, so no use in asking me!"

With significant effort, Harry was able to divert the conversation into more mundane topics. Sherlock, though grumpy at first, accepted the change and happily discussed his first week at Hogwarts with them.

As the days went by, a sort of invisible battlefield had been formed between Malfoy and Harry. His friendship with Sherlock seemed to annoy Malfoy more than Harry thought. At times, it was hard to tell whether he felt anger or disgust for the two. For their part, Harry and Sherlock returned the feeling.

They couldn't stand his unfounded arrogance or the smug looks he shot at people like Neville.

It didn't help that their only class with him did nothing but reinforce the pure disdain they had for him. Snape didn't bother to hide his favouritism for Malfoy. Harry found himself enjoying Potions class even less than History of Magic, because not only was Snape a terrible teacher, he also had to endure Sherlock and Hermione's silent war.

Sherlock didn't let her answer any questions or stand out at all in Snape's class. It was clear why he had done it, as Snape went out of his way to berate Gryffindor students regardless of how smart they were. Hermione should have known that, but it seemed like she insisted on trying to stand out just because Sherlock tried to stop her.

"If you don't stop, I'm going to tell Ms. McGonagall!" she threatened him.

"No you won't," he answered calmly. "She would take points off Gryffindor if you did that. And you don't want to be _that_girl who destroys the house, do you?"

She turned around, nose facing the ceiling, and paced away from them. While she was undeniably hard to get along with, Harry couldn't help but feel like Sherlock was just as hard if not harder. He even wondered why he got along with him so well.

"I'm not being difficult, I'm being logical," he grunted as he glanced at his timetable. "You don't ever react the way she does, that's why we get along."  
>Harry thought it was better not to mention he might react similarly if Sherlock were to make him think he had cast a paralysing spell on him every time they had Potions class.<p>

"We have flying lessons with the Slytherins," Sherlock noted happily.  
>"Don't," Harry responded instinctively. "Don't try to knock Malfoy off of his broomstick. We could get into trouble."<p>

Sherlock glanced at Harry with a happy smirk on his face. "It's strange that you seem to think an action is so wrong while thinking of it without any suggestion from me."

"It's not that I have anything against the idea," Harry shrugged. "I just don't think the consequences are worth it. It's not like I would want to make a fool out of myself in front of Malfoy." Harry sighed upon imagining Malfoy laughing at his inexperience with flying. "Don't suggest knocking him off his broomstick during class. I might end up saying yes."

Sherlock grinned. "Harry, the beautiful thing about consequences is that you can avoid them if you try hard enough."

Though Harry would never admit, he figured Sherlock was well aware that every time Malfoy talked about his flying adventures—which was almost every day—Harry felt more inclined to accept Sherlock's plan. It wasn't that Malfoy was the only one who talked about flying, far from it. But there was just something about him that made Harry instantly despise anything he said. He didn't mind however listening to Seamus' stories of flying. In fact, he found them fascinating. Everyone who came from a wizarding family seemed to have a story about flying. Even Sherlock had a flying story where he, seven years old, chased after a mysterious sound in the night.

"It turned out to be a cat," Sherlock finished his story without taking his eyes off from _Hogwarts: A History._

Between Sherlock's complete lack of emotion towards flying(and things in general) and Neville's constant reminders that he had never touched a broomstick before, Harry found himself comfort in that he wasn't alone in his uncertainty.

Hermione Granger was also having problems with the incoming lesson, furiously reading Quiddich(which Harry assumed to be some kind of sport) and general flying books in hopes of understanding the theory well enough to calm her nerves. It certainly didn't help that Sherlock mentioned an uncanny number of flying accidents Harry doubted had ever happened whenever she was around.  
>It occurred to Harry that perhaps Neville did fly at some point in his life and had simply forgotten it. He certainly wouldn't put it past the boy, as he had a strange talent for forgetting things. Perhaps it was because of that his Grandmother sent him a Remembrall, which supposedly reminded him he had forgotten something.<p>

When the time came, almost everyone walked into the fields with high emotions. Whether it was nervousness or excitement, it seemed as though all of them felt strongly about the class one way or the other. Sherlock, of course, was the exception who didn't seem to care either way.

"Don't let me stop you from being excited," said Sherlock, seemingly struggling  
>to stay awake.<p>

"I don't think you would have the energy to," said Harry. "Did you get any sleep last night?"

"Of course I did." He sounded more surprised than anything else at Harry's question. "It's just that this is so useless, so boring. Who cares about flying?"

"You can't just ignore something because it doesn't interest—right," he said upon remembering who he was talking to.

It was a clear day, the afternoon breeze gently reminding them they would soon feel the air pressed against their faces. Harry saw Hermione, but didn't say anything. She kept mumbling all she had learned about flying to herself and was unmistakably shaking. It was to Harry's surprise that Sherlock put his hand on her shoulder and talked with her in a rarely non-ironic tone.

"Don't worry," he assured her. "There's no secret to flying. Trust me. You can do it."

He walked away from her before she could respond, but Harry saw her muttering something along the lines of "Thanks," though her face and tone indicated she wasn't quite sure whether to be thankful. Regardless, Harry noticed she was no longer shaking as Madame Hooch approached the class.

"Nobody is nervous, I hope?" she asked, to a mixed response from the class.

"Then let's get to it!"

Everyone exchanged nervous glances. They were instructed to stick our their hands and command their broomsticks to fly to their hands. Harry held out his hand, but he had somehow lost all the nervousness he gathered in the last few days.

"UP!" everyone shouted.

Harry's broomstick promptly flew straight to his hand, and he was pleased to note that it was one of the few that did so. To his surprise, Hermione had also managed to call her broomstick, and was beaming with happiness. Sherlock's broomstick also flew to his hand, but it did so in a slow, lethargic manner. Sherlock himself also looked rather bored. It occurred to Harry that perhaps broomsticks corresponded to the desire and confidence to fly its wielder had.

The next few minutes were spent learning how to mount on broomsticks. Hermione seemed more confident now, but Neville remained a pile of nerves. Harry began to have fun with the lesson, especially as he noted Malfoy seemed to have more difficulty than one would expect from his boisterous stories.

"On my whistle, kick off the ground as hard as you can, is that understood?" said Madame Hooch. "Prepare yourselves, and do not—"

She probably meant to say "do not start before I tell you to," but unfortunately Neville had done so before she was able to finish her warning. Harry looked up and saw Neville continue to rise towards the sky. Harry wouldn't be able to comprehend what happened a moment later.

For a moment, it seemed as though Neville was in for a dangerous fall. But then a black blur flew from Harry's left side and shot upward in an incredible speed. At the same time, Neville fell from his broomstick, screaming as he did so. The black blur didn't change its trajectory, having apparently deduced where Neville would fall. Then, black blur jumped off of his broomstick, caught Neville in midair just before they both hit the ground.

"Sherlock? Sherlock!" Harry cried.

The entire class rushed towards the two. Madame Hooch commanded everyone to give them space, and most did so. Harry didn't. He knelt down beside Sherlock and kept calling his name, worried. Sherlock's shoulder seemed unnatural.

"Are you. ...?" asked Madame Hooch. It seemed as though she wanted to ask about their health, but was still in too much of a shock to finish the question.

"I'm fine," cried Neville. It seemed as though he were about to cry, regardless of his apparent physical safety.

"I might have broken my arm—OUCH!" said Sherlock as Madame Hooch examined him. "Yes, I definitely broke my arm, I figured you could tell from its shape without having to cause me any more pain," he said angrily. His sarcasm appeased Harry a bit, though he was still convinced Sherlock was the kind of person who would keep his dry humour even if he faced Lord Voldemort.

Nonetheless, it seemed strange, in both intention and result. Sherlock had never shown any concern for Neville before, which made his reasons for his rescue rather questionable. Harry didn't like to admit it, but Sherlock wasn't exactly a nice person. It just didn't seem like him to hurt himself for somebody he barely knew. Moreover, Harry had observed Sherlock's attempted rescue closely enough to notice one strange fact; Sherlock seemed to have fallen on top of his arm on purpose.

"Foolish child," Madame Hooch berated. "That's why I said to wait for my signal!"

Neville lowered his head in shame. She then turned to Sherlock, who held out a cocky smirk despite his broken arm.

"It was a foolish thing to do," she said sternly. "But you protected your friend at the expense of hurting yourself. Do not do it again, but... ."Madame Hooch paused, seemingly unable to decide whether what she was about to do was a good decision or not. "Five points to Gryffindor."

The Gryffindors cheered mildly upon receiving that news. It wasn't a big amount of points, but it was still something worth cheering over when they were as filled with excitement as they were at that moment.

"I'll take you to the hospital wing," said Madam Hooch. "None of you touch your brooms while I'm not here or else you'll be expelled quicker than this boy's reflexes!"

"I'll go too," said Neville.

It wasn't until the class could no longer hear their footsteps that Malfoy began to loudly and viciously mock the situation. He and several other Slytherin students laughed rather quietly, but still disdainfully.

"Can you believe it?" said Malfoy smugly. "The idiot broke his arm to help Longbottom. Longbottom!" he repeated for added emphasis, as if Neville wasn't worth saving.

"Shut up," Harry roared, with a kind of anger he wasn't quite used to. Was that what getting upset at people for belittling your friends felt like?

"Oh don't worry Potter, I'm sure you would have done the same if you had the same reflexes as him," said Malfoy. "Only you aren't just stupid—you are useless too."

"Malfoy, if you don't shut up within the next minute..."

"Then what?" Malfoy said as he grabbed Neville's Remembrall . "It looks like your other friend dropped this. Why don't you come get it?"  
>Malfoy jumped on his broom and flew away, the Slytherins cheering his every action. Harry had enough.<p>

"UP!" Harry commanded to his broomstick.

"Harry, don't! Remember what Madame Hooch said!" said Hermione.

"I do remember it," he said, gritting his teeth. "I also remember what Sherlock said."

He had never had a friend before Hogwarts. He couldn't stand Malfoy making fun of Sherlock for doing something genuinely brave. Letting him get away with stealing Neville's Remembrall and his trash talking simply wasn't an option.  
>He kicked the ground hard and flew towards Malfoy. It wasn't scary at all. It was the opposite of scary, it felt...right. For a second, Harry closed his eyes to enjoy the wind against his face. The next moment, he opened them again and flew towards Malfoy like a missile. Malfoy still had a confident smirk, probably thinking Harry wouldn't dare to do anything against him.<p>

He was wrong.

Harry threw his body against Malfoy, causing him to both drop Neville's Remembrall and nearly fall off his broom. Malfoy could have dodged him if Harry was simply trying to get the Remembrall off him—he wasn't. At that moment, Neville's object wasn't important. The only thing that mattered was to make Malfoy shut up. Then time slowed down. He couldn't even feel the wind against his face anymore; it was too slow for the sensation to register in his brain. His body was moving faster than he could think. He felt his body tackle Malfoy once more, and the next thing he knew The Remembrall was on his hand.

At this moment, he should have slowly flown toward the ground and celebrated having caught the Remembrall with his housemates. Instead, what he did was fly toward Malfoy at full speed and knock him off of his broom.

A few hours after the incident, when he returned to the Gryffindor tower, he was rather happy with how things had turned out, but it seemed as though Hermione Granger wouldn't allow him to be in that state for much longer.

"What happened?" she said, not hiding a certain curiosity in her voice.

Harry awkwardly scratched his head to buy him time before explaining things. This didn't work, because Hermione quickly noticed his intentions and forced the truth out of him.

"How were you not expelled?" Hermione seemed almost disgusted. "You disobeyed a teacher and knocked Malfoy off his broomstick!"

Harry felt a bit bad about what he did to Malfoy, but part of him felt he deserved it.

"I did get a few detentions for that," he said carefully.

"And?" she asked.

"And a spot on the Quiddich team," he admitted.

Hermione must surely have ranted at him for a few minutes after this happened, but Harry's period with the Dursleys allowed to ignore most of it while occasionally saying "yes" and "you're right." When her mouth stopped moving, he shrugged and said, "Is Sherlock back yet?"

"No," she said. She seemed worried.

"Do you know where the hospital wing is?"

She shook her head.

"Ah, it's okay," said Harry. "I'll look for it then."

For a moment, it seemed as though Hermione wanted to say something, but she didn't. Harry waited for a moment, but upon seeing she wouldn't change her mind, he walked through the portrait on the wall to look for Sherlock, hoping no issues would come from that. He was fortunate enough to be correct about that, but unfortunately, Sherlock wouldn't allow that state of peace to last for long.

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><p><em><span>Hello guys! Hope you enjoyed this chapter, as the timeline begins to drift rather drastically from the original series. I will not be including the duel at midnight because I reasoned that Malfoy would know better than to try to trick Sherlock Holmes into a trap, as he would surely tell Harry not to go. Because of Sherlock's mood swings, I figured that Hermione becoming their friend slowly rather than after one major event would make far more sense, within this context, so that will change a few things as well. Overall, this is fun, thank you for all the reviews you gave me so far, and please keep reading!<span>_


	5. The Midnight Adventure

Disclaimer: I do not own neither series talked about in this story.

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><p>Sherlock returned to the Gryffindor tower a few hours after Harry had visited him, which seemed strange because Hogwarts' nurse, Madame Pomphrey, had said he would be healed in a few minutes. She had even asked Harry if he wanted to wait for his friend before Sherlock assumed an uncharacteristic worried look and told him to go ahead so he wouldn't miss any classes.<p>

Harry never asked him about why he took so long to show up—he had never been so excited to tell someone about how his day was before. Night would fall before they finished laughing about the flying class("Knew you would do it," said Sherlock) and how they had fun that day.

For a moment, as they walked from the common room to the dining hall, Harry thought they were being watched, but a minute later he decided he must have imagined it. Sherlock was still smiling from all the laughter they shared a few minutes before, which meant he had either not heard the creaking footsteps behind them or found them to be quite humorous, if slightly sad.  
>Their laughter still continued as they filled their stomachs with the most stupendous food Hogwarts had to offer. The fun they were having made the food taste all the better.<p>

"I still can't believe it," said Sherlock. "You break more rules in a second than I did in the entire day—quite an accomplishment I may add—and you get rewarded for it?"

"I know," said Harry, breathing in relief for the first time since he had been told about it. "I'm just glad I wasn't expelled."

"Expelled?" Sherlock almost dropped a piece of steak from his fork in surprise. "Do you really think it's that easy to get expelled Harry?" Sherlock laughed once more, shook his head and ate his steak.

It wasn't long before the Weasley twins joined them in their table.

"Hey Harry, hey little brother!" Harry noticed Sherlock's smile fade slightly upon being called that. "We heard about it. We are on the team too. You must be really good Harry, first years aren't normally allowed to play in the team. Good thing that you are in Gryffindor!" Fred shot a not-so-sneaky blink at Sherlock, who seemed to cheer up a bit. Harry didn't understand it, but didn't pursue it either."

"Yeah," said George dreamily. "In any case, we have to go. Duty calls us. And by duty, I mean we got almost all the ingredients for the O.W.D. A little project of ours," he added upon seeing Harry's confused face. "Blimey Sherlock, you didn't tell him yet?"

Sherlock shook his head.

"Well, tell him now. We'd help you with it but we've got to go."

As they watched the twins leave their table, Harry slowly opened his mouth, and almost regretting every syllable coming out of it, found himself asking a question.

"O.W.D?" he repeated slowly. "What is the—"

"Harry, do you really want to know?" Sherlock asked with an unsettling innocent tone.

After considering the question for a moment, Harry shook his head. There were many things he wanted to know that he knew he was better off not knowing, like what was inside Gringotts the day they went to the Diagon Alley. The possible danger behind those secrets didn't scare him. His curiosity was bigger than that. But there was something about Sherlock's tone that made him want to avoid knowing what it was.

"Wise choice," he noted. "You'll sleep better at night."

At that time, the unpleasant company of Malfoy and his gang arrived to fill in the void left by Fred and George. Malfoy seemed particularly nasty, probably an effect of having being knocked out of his broomstick yesterday.

"You two are pathetic," he sneered. "You two risk everything for a bunch of no-goods who will never amount to anything, and what do you get for your troubles? A broken arm and a one-way ticket to the land of the Muggles."

"I must say," said Sherlock calmly. "Harry's ticket sounds more pleasant than yours, Malfoy. Your entire family has had a one-way ticket to hell since the day they were born."

"You think you are funny?" said Malfoy. He pointed at Crabbe and Goyle, as if to remind them why they existed. They stepped forward.

"I think he's funny," said Harry. "I can't say the same about you though. The way you change personalities when you got your friends to use as bodyguards isn't even funny."

"It's disgusting," completed Sherlock, smirking. "And unless you want me to send an owl to Arthur Weasley to investigate your house again... .You remember what happened last time I gave him some advice on how to search you, don't you?" There was an undertone of ferociousness Harry had before only seen in Sherlock's eyes.

"Do you think I'm scared of your filthy adoptive fath—" Malfoy began, but he didn't finish his insult. Harry saw Sherlock's furious expression and instinctively threw his glass of water at Malfoy. It was the least violent solution to the situation. "Y-you!"

It seemed as though Malfoy couldn't believe what Harry had just done.

"You should leave," said Harry coldly. "Now."

Unfortunately, Professor McGonagall saw that, costing him a point for Gryffindor. But he didn't even mind that much, he was more worried about Sherlock, who still seemed angry at what Malfoy had said.

"Thanks Harry," he said finally. "If you hadn't done that, I would have done something far worse."

"You're welcome," he responded resisting his curiosity to ask what he would have done. He was curious about many things, but he didn't want to pry too much into Sherlock's business. Harry wasn't used to being friends with somebody. He didn't know when it was fine to say something or not.

"I love the Weasleys and am very thankful they adopted me and my brother. You are like an open book Harry," Sherlock added smiling upon seeing Harry's confused face. "I don't mind telling you. It's hard for me to call them "brother" or "father" but I'm still thankful to them. It's a complicated feeling. Feelings are complicated. I hope I can get them under control over the years... . Ah well, I'll surely mature enough to stop worrying about those things. I'll stop having them even. They just get in the way of logic."

For a while, Harry didn't know what to say. He was torn between thankfulness for being trusted to that degree, and not knowing what the best answer to that declaration was. He knew, from what Sherlock had just said, that he wouldn't like an emotional answer. So he didn't give him one, even though he thought he should have.

"I'm sure you'll become one of the coldest, most bitter and painfully logical wizards in Britain when you grow up," he said. It seemed fitting.

"Why, you really think so?" Sherlock seemed to cheer up instantly. "Thank you Harry."

Later that night, they had fun playing wizard's chess in the Gryffindor common room. It was like regular chess, but the pieces were seemingly sentient and constantly talked down to them—well, they talked down to Harry. Sherlock's pieces seemed almost afraid of him, mostly because he intentionally sacrificed more pieces than necessary to make the game more interesting.

It was well past midnight when they rose to their feet and stretched for a bit, after the long period of sitting. Most people had already gone to sleep, but not Hermione Granger, who stood in her pink bathrobe with her arms crossed and eyes ready to lecture them.

"Whatever you are mad about," said Sherlock calmly as he put his hand on Harry's shoulder, "is completely and solely Harry's fault."

"It is," she said. "You lost the same number of points for Gryffyindor that I won for—"

"It really _is_ something Harry did," said Sherlock, laughing quietly. "I wasn't expecting that."

"Neither was I," admitted Harry. He hadn't lost that many points, at least not compared to Sherlock who lost points almost as regularly as he won them. And why had she stayed up so late to talk to him about it?

"Well then, feel free to yell at Harry, I'm off to sleep," he said, yawning loudly and walking to the dormitory.

When he was gone, Hermione sat in his chair and looked at Harry with a very serious expression.

"Malfoy insulted his parents," said Harry. "If I hadn't done anything, he would have done something far worse than what I—"

"Harry, that's the problem!" she cried. "He's a reckless person. Don't get involved with him! Can't you tell he's bad news? He disobeys teachers, skips classes, loses points, and does it all without caring! Would you have lost any points so far if it weren't for him?"

"Well, I'm sure I would have lost points in Potions," he said, but wished he hadn't, because Hermione's face immediately turned even more serious as she remembered what Sherlock had done in Potions class. "He's not bad, Hermione. Even if he's a little—"

"Out of his mind?"

"Sometimes," Harry admitted. "But even when he's out of his mind, he still has his heart in the right place. Remember the flying lessons? He broke his arm saving Neville!"

"I know," she said. "But all I'm saying Harry, is that he's eventually going to get into trouble. He acts like he has a death wish. And when he does, you are going to get in trouble too. They are going to expel you from the school, even if you are the boy-who-lived." She sounded honestly concerned. "I don't want Gryffindor to lose any more points. So... ."

"I'm sorry," said Harry quietly. "But he's my friend. I can't—I won't abandon him just because of a few points."  
>Hermione seemed disappointed. She lowered her head, then raised it as if she were about to say something. But she never got the chance to, because Sherlock stormed out of the dormitory at that very moment.<p>

"It's an admirable hypothesis, it really is, but you fail to take one thing into consideration. I'm invincible, "he added after seeing the blank look on her face. "Harry will never get in trouble because so long as he is with me, we won't get burned even if we walk barefoot in hell. I'll never let him get caught or take the fall for the rules I break, I promise you that." He started jumping around impatiently. "I think I still got a little energy left to burn before sleep. Harry, feel like joining me on a little adventure?"

"Adventure?" she cried. "It's past midnight we should be in bed—"

"Adventure!" he responded, without elaborating. He smiled maniacally at Harry. "Come on Harry! The night awaits us!"

Harry was barely given time to think before Sherlock grabbed him by his wrist and pulled him through the portrait. For what seemed like forever but must have not been longer than a few seconds, they just ran without a regard to staying hidden. Then, Sherlock slowed down, let go of Harry's wrist, and spoke without turning.

"Harry, do you think I'm out of my mind?" he asked. There was no mistaking the genuine uneasiness hiding behind his nonchalant tone. Harry thought of many things to say, but in the end, settled for the most truthful and honest one of them all.

"I think you are my friend," he said. "I don't think about anything else."

"I see." A pause. And then—"Thank you Harry."

"Do you think Hermione is going to follow us?"

Sherlock shrugged. "I don't think it's within my extraordinary reach to bring myself to care about the answer to that question."

But he would soon find out that he could bring himself to care, if only because she would come running loudly towards them and ranting far too loudly if they wanted to remain undetected by Filch and his cat.

"—why I said you weren't a good person. Are you listening to me?"

"Quiet!" Harry hissed at her. None of them spoke until it was clear there were no footsteps anywhere near them. "Sherlock, what is it that you want to show us?"

"Oh you'll see," he answered grinning.

Hermione protested, but they made their way through the castle's halls, hiding from ghosts and sneaking behind Filch's cat. Harry had to fight against an impulse to laugh. He felt sorry, but regardless of what Hermione said, he didn't think he would be able to stop doing this kind of thing with Sherlock. He enjoyed the feeling of venturing through the night, not knowing what he would find... .

"If we are caught—"Hermione began.

"If we are caught,"Sherlock replied, enunciating each word carefully,"then I will stop paralysing you during Potions class. Ah well, we arrived."

"Where are we?" asked Hermione.

Harry already knew where they were before Sherlock replied. "We are in front of the forbidden corridor," said Harry.

"Indeed we are," Sherlock nodded in approval. "Now, I was just going through our textbook looking for the spell we needed—but here it is. _Alohomora!_"  
>Sherlock's wand hit the doorknob, and they heard it click. Instantly, Harry knew what had happened. It was unlocked.<p>

"We shouldn't be here. Professor Dumbledore said that we shouldn't be here!"she said, as if the headmaster's words were final.

"Correction, he said no one should come here unless they wanted to die a very painful death. And weren't you just telling Harry I had a death wish? Well, perhaps you're right!"

And with that, the door before them swung open. Sherlock put his index finger in front of his nose to tell them to be quiet, and slowly walked inside the room. It took a while to dawn on him what they were looking at.  
>It looked like a dog, but it couldn't be a dog. It was far too big, it was almost as tall as the ceiling. It had far too many heads too; he had three of them, all staring right into their souls as if they intended to suck them right out of their bodies...with their fangs.<p>

Neither Harry nor Hermione waited for Sherlock to tell them what to do. They slammed the door behind them and ran towards the common room, without looking back even once. When they had returned, they were all breathing hard, shaking, eyes moving wildly.

"So," asked Sherlock excitedly, "what do you think?"

"_What was that?_" asked Harry, wanting to scream but not having enough air in his lungs to do so.

"Why Harry I think it was a gigantic three-headed dog," said Sherlock, with the same tone he would use to describe the weather. "But more importantly, did you see what was under his feet?"

"A trapdoor," muttered Hermione, still holding her bathrobe tightly around her heart. "It was guarding something."

Sherlock stared at her with a dumbfounded expression.

"You aren't stupid," he said, sounding genuinely surprised.

She glared at him.

"If you are done trying to make Gryffindor lose the house cup—"

"Do you mean today or in general?" Sherlock then turned to Harry. "Are you alright there?"

"I'm fine," said Harry, still trying to catch his breath. "Just a little surprised at the three-headed dog."

"Oh yes, that was your first time seeing it, wasn't it?"

"You mean it wasn't yours?" said Hermione.

This was bad. Every bone in Harry's body told him that whatever Sherlock said next would just make the situation worse. He tried to signal him to stop talking, but was unsuccessful.

"What, you think I broke my arm by accident?" Sherlock talked as if the very idea of him injuring himself accidentally was amusing. "I broke it on purpose to get to the hospital wing then use my newly created alibi to visit the forbidden corridor."

"You mean you didn't save Neville because it was the right thing to do?"  
>Sherlock laughed wholeheartedly. "Oh lord, no. It just seemed like the perfect opportunity to"<p>

Hermione turned around, hold held up high, and walked back to the girl's dormitory. Without anything that could be called a reaction, Sherlock turned to Harry.

"What did I say?"

"You make convincing people that you are a good person a very difficult job,"  
>said Harry.<p>

Sherlock didn't seem to care about that possibility too much."Now Harry, we  
>should go to bed as well. We will be skipping breakfast tomorrow."<p>

"Why?"

"Because we have a few questions to ask Hagrid," he said. "The three-headed dog must be guarding—"

"—the package Hagrid took out of Gringotts," Harry completed. Sherlock smiled.

It was certainly something to think about. Harry wasn't as obsessed about it as Sherlock was, but he did wonder what could be so dangerous someone would risk entering Gringotts for and deserved to be guarded by a three-headed dog?

Just what was hidden there?

More importantly, how long could he keep Sherlock from trying to sneak in there to see what was hidden behind it? As it would turn out, not too long.

* * *

><p><strong><em><span>Hello! Thank you all for your reviews. They were all very pleasant to read and I made it a personal rule to go work on this fic every time I read a review, haha. I was having trouble with this chapter, because one thing I'm trying really hard to mimic J.K Rowling's style to keep the fanfic as authentic as possible. I am intending to mix things up a bit though, as far as narrative style goes, but I'm trying to remain loyal to the source.<span>_**

**_Oh right, Holmes development. I think it's safe to assume he was, one day, a little kid. I assume he wasn't born the (seemingly) cold, calculating machine we all know and love so I decided to portray him as having some genuine displays of emotion but appearing annoyed at them. The plan is for the displays of emotion to decrease as the fanfic goes on and Holmes grows up and he gets better at hiding them._**

**_Hope the fanfic is still enjoyable, and if you think there's anything I can improve on(and I'm sure there must be a lot) feel free to let me know!_**


	6. The Game

Harry couldn't believe how dedicated Sherlock was to investigating the mysterious trapdoor guarded by the three-headed dog. It wasn't his passion that surprised him, Harry expected him to be very dedicated. What surprised him was how methodical he was. They visited Hagrid six times within the next six days, and to Harry's surprise, he never asked Hagrid about it directly.

It was in their fourth visit that he found what they were looking for.

"It's hard to have a scary Halloween atmosphere when Dumbledore is here. Dumbledore is a great man," said Sherlock, as he drank his tea in a strangely calm manner. "I can't really be afraid of anything when he's around. I would trust him with my life. I'd guess most wizards would trust him with anything. The Holmes family certainly wouldn't hesitate with entrusting him with anything. The Weasleys as well. The Potters would as well, I'm sure... ." Sherlock trailed off at that moment, strategically allowing Hagrid to finish his reticence.

Harry was surprised to hear Sherlock talk like that. He had never heard him talk about Dumbledore at all before those interviews, save for one or two passing mentions. Yet, he had brought up Dumbledore and how people trusted him every time they visited Hagrid, every time listing a different number of families that would certainly trust him.

"Yer right on that Sherlock," said Hagrid, clearly pleased with the positive compliments to Dumbledore. "The Lovegoods, the Longbottoms, good ol' Nicolau Flamel, they would all trust him with his life. Cookies?"

"Oh yes thanks," said Sherlock, beaming so brightly from his new information that he managed to smile despite the awful taste of Hagrid's cookies.

They found no further clues in their other two visits, but that didn't seem to put a damper on Sherlock's mood. He told Harry he had no idea who Nicolas Flamel was, but he was so pleased by his new information that he was barely hostile to Hermione Granger anymore. Which was a good thing too, because she was extremely mad at them since the three-headed dog incident.

Harry didn't like the way she acted, but he found it hard to be angry at her for being rude when he was used to Sherlock's far worse behaviour. To be perfectly frank, they were about evenly matched in lacking social manners, with Sherlock having perhaps a slight edge because of how upfront he was about his lack of desire to please people.

"Nicolas Flamel," said Sherlock thoughtfully. "I have mentioned before to you Harry, but I believe he is the key to this mystery."

Sherlock had indeed said that multiple times. He never seemed to pay much attention to Harry while thinking about the trapdoor. Every time Harry asked something, he either vaguely mumbled an answer in such a cryptic manner he wouldn't even remember he had said it later, or he would tell Harry to shut up and let him focus.

"You did say it," said Harry. "And I said I wasn't sure about it. Hagrid also mentioned other families over the last few visits. You can't be sure that Nicolas Flamel is the one that's hiding something—"

"You did say you weren't sure Harry, but regardless, you must admit I'm right because the alternative is having me pound your head with my flawless logic until you come around."

"Try me," said Harry, not bothering to suppress a laugh.

"Nicolas Flamel is an individual, not a family," said Sherlock, apparently pleased he had an opportunity to show his logic. "Not only that, he's the only person Hagrid mentioned that I have never heard of. I have heard of most British wizarding families born within the past two-hundred years, muggleborn or not. For Hagrid to just accidentally drop a name I just happen not to know...no, Harry. I doubt that is the case."

"Is that really enough information to know that you are right?"

Sherlock seemed outright offended at the question. "Of course not! It is a capital mistake to theorize before having your facts straight! But it _is_ enough information to know that I don't know enough. It's enough to know that we need to investigate!"

The next development in their school adventures came the week after, when the owls were spreading out across the Great Hall as usual, dropping presents, letters and excitement to all students who received them. Harry, who never got letters from anyone but Hagrid, was very much surprised when a large package was dropped in front of him, giving him a taste of excitement he wasn't quite used to receiving.

"That's a broomstick," said Sherlock amused. "McGonagall must really want you to win the Quiddich cup."

"How do you know that?" asked Harry, reading the parcel that came with the package and confirming Sherlock's deduction.

"It never ceases to amaze me how you are always surprised when I deduce something, then act like I just used a cheap trick once I explain how I did it."

"I don't do that," Harry protested, still staring at his package, wanting to rip it open. "How did you know?"

"I touched it and realized it felt like a broomstick," Sherlock answered simply. "Oh c'mon now! You said you wouldn't act like it was just a cheap trick!"

They laughed, and quickly left the Great Hall together with a few other Gryffindors to open the package. Before they could do so, Malfoy grabbed the package from Harry's hand, felt it for a while, then smiled wickedly.

"That's a broomstick—" he began, before being cut off.

"You are an idiot," Sherlock said calmly.

"We are not playing 'state the obvious' Sherlock, though I can see how Malfoy's stupidity might have confused you," said Harry, provoking many laughs from the Gryffindors.

It occurred to Harry that his time with Sherlock was beginning to have a negative effect on his behaviour, but a shockingly positive effect on his witty remarks. Before he could think about that for much longer, Professor Flitwick walked up to them, unnoticed up until he was standing right before them due to his diminutive size.

"Having fun?" he asked smiling.

"You have no idea how much," said Sherlock. "Oh, would you mind telling Mr. Malfoy that Harry has got special permission to have a broomstick before he tries to get us into trouble?"

"It would be my pleasure," he winked at them, seemingly amused.

They left behind a shocked Malfoy as they walked up the staircase laughing. They would have continued to laugh for a while, if they hadn't found a particularly annoyed Hermione standing there.

"I think I'm going to visit Hagrid," said Harry, noticing that Sherlock and Hermione were exchanging glares. "See you later—" Sherlock grabbed Harry by the arm, stopping him from leaving.

"I need you here Harry," said Sherlock. "What if she tries to kill me?"

"Perhaps I should hex you," said Hermione, crossing her arms. "Then I would be rewarded for breaking the rules. If disobeying a teacher gets you a spot on the Quiddich team and a broomstick, I wonder what violence gets you?"

"Disobeying the teacher didn't get Harry a spot on the team and a broomstick," said Sherlock. "His talent is what got him those things."

"Are you saying that if you have talent, then rules don't apply to you?"

"YES!" Sherlock screamed. At that moment, a few people on the staircase turned around to look at them. "If you have talent, then rules don't apply to you! Why should they?"

"You shouldn't be a Gryffindor," she shouted at him. "You should have been a Slytherin!"

It was clear that she had struck a nerve, because Sherlock's response was particularly vicious.

"The only reason you like rules so much is that it's the only connection you have with people! You just want an excuse to get mad at everyone because it's the only way you can talk with someone, because there's nothing else about you worth talking about! You cling on to books and rules not because they interest you, but because you have nothing else—"

"Stop!" said Harry, shaking himself free from Sherlock's grip and stopping his rant.

"What?" asked Sherlock, turning to him. It was then that he noticed the look on Hermione's face. She didn't seem angry anymore. She didn't seem like she wanted to argue either. She just stormed off away from them.

"You overdid it," said Harry, once it became clear that Sherlock wouldn't say anything. "You didn't need to go that far."

It was the first time Harry had ever berated Sherlock for something he did, but he felt it was the right thing to do. For a while, it seemed as if just going along with his unreasonable pace would sort everything out, but Harry knew that was wrong the moment he looked at how upset Hermione seemed.

"Maybe you are right," Sherlock shrugged, and then he walked away by himself towards the Gryffindor tower.

Harry didn't go back to the tower. Instead, he just walked around the castle by himself until it was time for his Quiddich practice. By seven o'clock, he was already by the Quiddich field and had forgotten all about Sherlock's fight with Hermione that had haunted him for the entire day.

It looked astounding. The seats were all elevated from the ground, which Harry deduced was so high up because the spectators needed to be able to see the flying players. He wasn't thinking of the possibility of falling from that height. He wasn't thinking at all. He just grabbed his Nimbus Two Thousand, and kicked against the ground, feeling the breeze against his face.

It wasn't until Oliver Wood's voice called him back to reality(and the ground) that he stopped flying.

"You're a natural," Wood said, with the tone of someone who was just informed Christmas had come early this year. "You are even better than I imagined!"

"Thanks," Harry muttered, not used to receiving compliments. "Sorry for not waiting for you to fly."

"It's quite alright," Wood smirked. "It's a great feeling, isn't it?"

"Yes," Harry nodded. "It's...exhilarating," he said, surprising himself and Wood with his choice of words.

"Isn't it?" he asked excitedly. "The Quiddich field looks kind of small, doesn't it? It seems like you could get from one extremity to another in less than a minute if you were flying at top speed...but when you are standing there, with the crowd cheering and the balls flying around around..._it __feels __so __big_ Harry. It feels like even if you could use a timeturner, you would never have enough time to do everything you want. You always keep chasing after that one more goal, those ten extra points... ." Wood stopped speaking for a moment, staring off the distance dreamily.

It was a long time before he spoke again, but Harry didn't try to rush him. Though he didn't understand the rules of the game, he understood what Wood meant.

As the night went on, Harry learned about all kinds of rules. How his position was called the seeker, how he had to catch the Golden Snitch, how it was worth a hundred and fifty points, how three Chasers tried to score using the Quaffle while the Keeper tried to stop the other team from doing just that, how the Beaters were supposed to protect the rest of the team from the dangerous Bludgers, and just how fun the game was.

Harry didn't miss a single ball Wood threw at him during practice(they didn't use the Snitch since it was dark and they could lose it) which was enough to make Wood punch the air excitedly.

When Harry returned to the Gryffindor tower, he instantly remembered the argument Sherlock and Hermione had, as he saw Sherlock sitting by the fireplace reading a book.

"Hey," said Harry, sitting beside him.

"How was practice?" asked Sherlock.

"It was—"

"I can't find anything on Nicolas Flamel," Sherlock complained. "This is the fifth book I've read today and I couldn't find anything on him. This is frustrating."

"Have you seen Hermione since what happened earlier?"

Sherlock closed his book at once. It was clear he wasn't particularly happy to speak of that subject, but he seemed to know it was important enough to warrant his full attention.

"No, I haven't." He paused. "It's not fun."

"Huh?"

"Saying things without thinking them through, just because you are angry. It isn't fun at all Harry. It makes me feel... ."

"Human?"

"Yes," Sherlock answered, annoyed. "I don't like it. I should have known it wasn't a good idea, but I didn't know. Not at that moment. I did, a moment later, and I would have known a moment before. But not at that moment."

"It's okay," said Harry, patting him on the shoulder slightly. "We all make mistakes. Just apologize to her and—"

"Apologize?" Sherlock seemed disgusted at the idea. "I'm just upset I can't talk down to her anymore. I don't care if she was offended by it."

But Harry knew it wasn't true. He could tell, from the fact Sherlock had closed his book before speaking, that he did feel bad—or that he at least felt something about it, but that he wouldn't apologize for it. Harry couldn't blame him entirely.

His stomach sank when he remembered Hermione telling Sherlock he should have been a Slytherin. The Sorting Hat had told Harry that he could have done well in Slytherin...had he told Sherlock something similar? Probably not. Sherlock was announced as a Gryffindor immediately after he put the hat on. Was there something else that made the subject particularly difficult for him?

"Harry," said Sherlock. "Am I an idiot?"

"You are a genius," Harry sighed. It was the truth too. "But you are also an idiot."

Sherlock shrugged. "I guess I can live with that."

With the amount of homework he had and the Quiddich practice, it was possible that Harry wouldn't even have noticed time pass for a while, if not for the uncomfortable moments of silence when both Hermione and Sherlock were in the same room, constantly reminding him of how still time could stand at times.

Even though time went by slowly, it didn't stop. It was two months since Harry had arrived at Hogwarts, and it was now Halloween, as the smell of pumpkin pies reminded them. While the day seemed off to a great start, it seemed ready to take a nosedive. Professor Flitwick had decided to teach them a levitation spell, which would be great under normal circumstances, but he had decided to pair Sherlock and Hermione.

Harry's partner was Seamus Finnigan, but he wasn't paying much attention. He was far too busy trying to eavesdrop their conversation.

"_Wingardium__Leviosa,__"_ said Sherlock, effortlessly lifting the feather they were supposed to direct their spells at.

"_Wingardium__Leviosa,__"_ said Hermione, repeating Sherlock's results.

"Isn't it kind of annoying," complained Seamus to Harry, "that everyone else is having trouble with the spell and those two just casually do it while being passive aggressive to each other?"

Harry nodded. He was indeed having much trouble with the spell, as was the rest of the class.

"Hermione," said Sherlock. Harry froze. He was hoping he wouldn't say anything at all for the rest of the class. There was a good chance he was going to make her angry.

"Yes?" she asked, her tone indicating she was ready to bicker.

"Have you ever travelled by airplane before?"

Harry blinked, and Hermione did the same, though she couldn't see Harry's reaction.

"What?"

"I had to do it once to visit an uncle. My biological father's brother. Mr. Weasley was quite excited to be in it. It was interesting."

"Yes," she answered warily as if she expected an insult to come out of nowhere, "my parents took me in vacation a few times. Why do you ask?" she added, sounding legitimately curious.

"Well, it's just one of those things I wonder about from time to time," he said. "How those items work without magic...they fascinate me. They seem to run on pure logic. And there aren't really that many muggleborn students here I can talk to this about, so...this is the kind of subject that I need to talk to you about."

It was subtle, but Harry could definitely tell how much of an effort it took for him to say even as much as that. But Hermione seemed to understand.

"Thanks," she replied, knowing her answer didn't quite make sense considering his last statement. "Your...biological father?"

Sherlock nodded. "He's dead. Mr. Weasley is my adoptive father."

"Oh," she said. "I'm really sorry."

There was a moment of silence, as if Hermione wanted to show her respect to the dead.

"I wasn't really mad."

"I didn't really care if you were," said Sherlock. "And you _were _mad."

"I wasn't," she smiled, taking out a piece of paper from her bag and handing it to him. "See?"

Harry had to completely ignore Seamus setting himself on fire in order to stretch his neck to the left and see what was written on the paper without being noticed.

_I, __HERMIONE __GRANGER, __am __not __angry __at __Mr. __Sherlock __Holmes. __I __plan __on __acting as if I were __during __the __next __few __weeks __so __he'll __learn __to __be __more __polite ar__ound __me._

"I asked Professor McGonagall to sign it, so you can make sure the date is correct. I wrote that the day we talked," she said proudly.

"You tricked me," he repeated, in a low tone that Harry could barely hear. He worried that Sherlock was about to blow up and forget any attempt at being friendly with her. Hermione must have thought the same, because she was quickly to apologize.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to—"

"You tricked me," he repeated. Hermione stood silent for a minute, until she noticed there was no anger in his tone. If anything, he seemed amused by it. He was smiling. Harry couldn't remember having seen him smile like that before. "Who are you?"

It was a strange question to ask to someone he had known for almost two months now, but Hermione understood what he meant.

"I'm Hermione Granger," she replied, smiling as well now. "And I won't let you be an idiot without consequence."

"A rather boring name, but I won't forget it. I'm Sherlock Holmes, and I'll do the same to you."

They shook hands in a strangely formal way that seemed too overdone even for an adult, much less to them. But Harry smiled as well, and for a good reason. From that point on, he didn't need to try to avoid having the two of them get near each other anymore.

It was a strange, but pleasant feeling to walk back to the Gryffindor tower once class had ended, hearing the two banter without any actual hostility behind their words.

"I'm glad you two are getting along now," said Harry. "I was getting tired of trying to make sure you didn't kill each other."

"Oh please," said Sherlock angrily. "If I wanted to kill someone, you would never be able to stop me."

Hermione laughed, maybe because she too was enjoying the new atmosphere, maybe because she hadn't spent enough time with Sherlock yet to know how serious he could be. Harry just frowned and moved on, as the day went by.

Dinner seemed to taste much better when Harry didn't have to worry about stopping Sherlock from jinxing Hermione when she wasn't paying attention. But it wasn't just that. The banquet was simply magnificent, featuring many different kinds of equally tasty food. Harry was just deciding what to eat first when the doors swung open and Quirrell ran down the hall screaming desperately, alternating between loud scream that pierced the night and barely heard whisper as he gasped for air. "TROLL—there's a troll—IN THE DUNGEONS—I just thought you ought to know."

Then, his face hit the ground as he passed out.

There was a general sense of panic among the students, but Dumbledore's magically amplified voice and a few firecrackers from his wand were enough to gather some silence.

"Prefects," he rumbled, "lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!"

Percy stood up at once, appearing to be feeling the same way Harry felt when he flew on his Nimbus Two Thousand.

"Don't fear the troll, we have everything under control! First-years, stick together! Trust me, we have everything under control—"

"I wonder how a troll got inside the castle," asked Hermione thoughtfully, as they made their way through the staircase. "They aren't smart enough to enter by themselves."

"I wonder too," said Harry.

"No," said Sherlock. "They really aren't."

Sherlock stopped dead on his tracks, opening a huge, wicked grin on his face. Hermione, who wasn't used to that expression, seemed concerned.

"What is it? Are...are you okay?" she asked.

He laughed. It was a quiet laugh, because he didn't want to stand out, but it seemed like the kind a mad scientist would have. Sherlock turned around, noticed a way to escape the prefects, and smirked back at them. "I'll see you later."

"Where are you going?" cried Harry.

"Elementary," he said, unable to hide the intense anxiety in his voice. "The troll—he isn't that smart—this is my one chance Harry. If my logic is right, then this should give us a few extra clues. Don't you see where I want to go Harry? Don't you see why it needs to be now? It's because, my dear Harry, _the game is afoot__!__"_

And so he disappeared within the crowd of Hufflepuffs.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Alright, this was a long chapter! I've been dying to write "the game is afoot" since I thought of this fanfic. One thing I really wanted to dedicate to this chapter was some emotional development, since one thing I see pretty often in Harry Potter fanfics is that people neglect what characters are feeling in favour of moving the story along, which just kills the atmosphere of the story for me, and one of the reasons I'm such a fan of Harry Potter is the amazing atmosphere it has. <strong>_

_**Whether I succeeded or not at emulating that atmosphere this chapter(which is where I more or less lost my "training wheels" so to speak and had to write without much of a reference on the original canon) is up to you, but that was more or less what I was going for.**_

_**One more thing, I didn't edit the last few chapters over the weekend because this chapter took much longer than I thought it would and I was just out of time. I plan on editing them during this weekend though. To be honest, I'm a bit bothered by how similar the first few chapters are to the original canon, down to a few lines. I was going to wait a little before fixing that, but it has been bothering me quite a bit, so I'll change it by the time I post the next chapter. No major plot changes or anything, just making the writing more original and giving it a quirk or two. **_

_**Also, one important thing:**_

_**I'm planning on renaming the story, not sure to what yet. It's just that I realized how awful and cliched "The Butterfly Effect" is and I think I can't live with myself if I don't use another title. Well, it isn't a terrible title, but it has been rather overused in Harry Potter fanfics and I'd rather not get this story confused with any other. But I won't change it out of nowhere, so don't worry about it. I'll warn everyone about the name change 4 chapters before it actually happens.**_

_**Well, this was one long chapter with an almost longer author's note. Phew. Hope you are still enjoying the story. **_


	7. His First Move

It only took five seconds for Hermione to regain her composure and turn to Harry at a loss of words, awaiting an explanation he wasn't sure if he could give her. He had seen the same things she had. There was nothing he could say that she hadn't already thought. Then he remembered what Sherlock had said when they first met.

"We all saw it. You just didn't observe it," Sherlock had said back then.

Harry didn't know how observing differed from seeing. But as soon as he remembered Sherlock's words, his mind jumped straight to a question he had wondered about for quite some time now. _What did Sherlock Holmes like to do? _Then, a moment later, he came to a theory he thought had a decent chance of being correct.

"The troll or the three-headed dog," Harry muttered, shaking slightly.

"What are you talking about?" asked Hermione, knowing full well what Harry was talking about but still holding on to the hope she was wrong.

"He went after either the troll or the three-headed dog. There's nothing else that could make him smile like that," said Harry, somewhat shocked at his own words. "That's what he likes to do. He likes adventures. I need to go after him before he gets himself killed."

"Harry! We should tell a teacher, we shouldn't—"

"It could be too late!" Harry snapped at her. "I can't just sit here and hope teachers solve this when Sherlock could be being killed by a monster!"

"What if you get expelled?"

Harry didn't answer. He felt guilty for leaving Hermione behind, who looked very torn between going with him and staying behind, but he didn't have time to wait for her to decide what to do. Just like Sherlock had done moments before, he disappeared within the crowd of Hufflepuffs and quickly slipped away from the group. He was now in an empty corridor, alone.

The next step was to determine whether he was going after the three-headed dog or the troll. It was a fifty-percent chance regardless of which choice he picked. With that in mind, Harry decided to look for the troll hoping he would be less lethal than the gigantic three-headed dog, though he wasn't sure what a troll actually _was_, aside from the vague Muggle descriptions he was used to.

He didn't have any idea where the troll could be, but it wasn't too long before he found a clue. It was the worst stench Harry had ever smelled in his entire life. As the smell passed through his nostrills, he felt an almost uncontrollable urge to throw up. For some reason he couldn't quite explain to himself, he knew the smell belonged to the troll.

Just as he was getting used to smelling it, he heard it. As much as five seconds may have passed between each step, but the transition from a step to the next was seamless as each one made a loud, resounding thump that lasted well over a second each. Then, after smelling and hearing it, Harry saw it.

It was tall, it was monstrous, it was scary, and it was still standing. It never occurred to Harry that perhaps the monster had killed Sherlock and moved on. It never occurred to him that maybe Sherlock never intended to fight the monster. Harry just thought that if Sherlock had crossed paths with the troll, then the beast would no longer be standing. It was then he realized he had made a mistake. Sherlock had gone to the three-headed dog, not the troll.

And then the troll turned around.

"Stay away," Harry heard himself say.

But it didn't seem like the the troll intended to obey, maybe because it couldn't understand what Harry was saying, maybe because it enjoyed violence. It didn't seem like it couldn't understand Harry because of languages differences; it simply seemed too stupid to even understand the concept of communication, which made him and his large wooden club all the more dangerous.

"Stay away," Harry repeated, though he knew it to be useless.

The troll walked away from the girl's bathroom, which he had almost entered, and turned around to face Harry in the hallway. He swung his wooden bat lethargically, but with an amount of power that would have let Harry paralysed with fear if his instincts gained from living with Dudley for so long hadn't kicked in and made him dive to the left to dodge the strike.

"Ouch!"

Harry felt a sharp pain in his left ankle. Perhaps he had twisted it, it was hard to tell. What he could tell for sure was that he wouldn't be able to escape the wooden club one more time, not with that speed. The troll seemed to be growing impatient, for in a sudden burst of energy, he rampaged towards Harry.

Without thinking, or perhaps thinking so fast his brain wasn't even aware of its own process, Harry pointed his wand at the creature, and cried out:

"_Wingardium Leviosa!"_

It wasn't a perfect spell, but he managed to at least pull the troll's club away from his hand, a fact the creature didn't notice immediately for he continued to swing his arm numerous times after it, unable to comprehend why the empty air he swung didn't produce the same effect as a club. Harry glanced at the club, and this time with more confidence, cried out his spell once more.

"_Wingardium Leviosa!"_

This time, the spell was effective enough to raise the club above the troll's head. At the same time, the troll seemed to realize he was no longer in possession of the club, but by then Harry had already dropped the weapon on the troll's head—he fell to his knees and just to the side of an exhausted Harry. If it had fallen just slightly more to the left, it would have crushed him underneath it.

At once, Harry was overcome with a sudden feeling he couldn't quite explain. He stood up slowly, then he looked down at the fallen troll.

"I've won," he whispered to himself, barely able to believe what he had done.

But he couldn't savour the victory for much longer, for at that moment Professor McGonagall, together with Professor Quirrell, appeared in the corridor both looking equally astounded, with Quirrell perhaps having a slight edge because McGonagall's surprise quickly gave way to anger.

"What demon possessed you to fight a troll Potter?" McGonagall's voice was filled with nothing less than pure fury. "The last thing we need is for—"

"Sherlock ran away from the group when he found out about the troll," said Harry. He felt tired. It could be that he felt it was better to tell the truth, or that perhaps now that the adrenaline wore off, he just didn't want to argue much if he could avoid. "I had to come after him! I couldn't just let him get himself killed!"

"And what was stopping you from getting _yourself _killed Potter?" McGonagall's voice remained just as angry, but Harry noticed her facial muscles relax ever so slightly. "You should have warned a teacher or a prefect instead of just rushing headstrong into the castle when you knew a troll was around!"

"I'm sorry," said Harry quietly. "But when I saw him run away just like that, I just got the feeling that he wouldn't come back if I didn't... ." Harry's reticence spoke better than he could have. He didn't want to put it into words. Sherlock was his first friend. The moment he saw him running away, he couldn't help but feel what he had been wondering in the corner of his mind since he came to Hogwarts. That he, much like this new life, would just slip away in the blink of an eye.

"Yes," said McGonagall, anger gone from her voice. Harry looked up, and was surprised to see her displaying a desolated expression. "About Mr. Holmes... ." she hesitated.

Harry's stomach sank.

"What happened to him?"

"Professor Snape took him to the hospital wing," she said delicately. "There is no doubt he'll be fine, however... ." McGonagall struggled with her words.

"Did he get hurt by the three-headed dog?" asked Harry before he could think about the meaning of his words.

McGonagall raised an eyebrow, her sadness turning back to her usual sharpness. "How do you know of the dog, Potter?"

"Did he?" he repeated his question.

"Yes," she nodded. "I don't have the faintest idea of why he was in the forbidden corridor, but Mr. Holmes saw the opened door and protected Professor Snape from the dog—"

"He protected _Snape?"_

"Professor Snape," said McGonagall. "Yes. He's earned a few points from Gryffindor for that, rest assured. He is likely still unconscious, but Madame Pomfrey must have finished the treatment by now. If you wish to visit him, you may do so, but don't take too long."

"Thank you, Professor," said Harry, jumping at the opportunity to check up on his friend.

"I'll accompany you to the hospital wing—"

"I can walk there myself," said Harry because of a bravado he couldn't quite explain. The feeling still hadn't quite gone away from his body.

"Very well Potter."

"Thank you again Professor." Then, suddenly remembering something, he added: "Professor, may I first go to the Gryffindor tower to get Hermione to come with me?"

"Why would you do that, Potter?" McGonagall asked, not hiding the surprise in her voice.

"Hermione is our friend, " he said. It was true too. Especially now. "She must be worried since Sherlock—well since we both just ran off," said Harry, coming to the uncomfortable realization he had been as reckless as Sherlock.

"You may do so," she agreed, with no small amount of suspicion in her voice. "I'll see to it that Madame Pomfrey is informed that you are allowed one special visit."

Just as Harry was about to leave, McGonagall cleared her throat loudly.

"Yes Professor?"

"I'll see to your detention later," she said coldly.

Harry wanted to complain about that decision, but he didn't. Instead, he just limped back to the Gryffindor tower too tired to think about what had just happened, which was too bad, because as soon as he came through the portrait, he was bombarded with questions.

"Why weren't you inside?"

"Did you see the troll?"

"You _fought _the troll?"

"Hey, everyone! Harry Potter took out the troll by himself!"

From that moment on, the whispers that followed him since his first day of school would become much louder. They would mention how he wasn't simply someone who got lucky against Voldemort, but rather someone born to take out the forces of darkness. The exaggeration of his actions would bother him, but at that moment, he ignored it and simply fought his way through the crowd to find Hermione sitting in a corner, reading a book.

"You are reading a book," said Harry. He was stating the fact out loud to convince himself of what he was seeing. "You were reading a book while I was fighting a troll?"

"It helps me stay calm," she answered quietly. It was all she would say. Harry noticed she was still on page four of that book, despite having had time to read at least fifty of them.

Harry didn't press that point. She seemed like she was on the verge of tears. Despite what she said, the book must not have helped her stay calm at all.

"Come with me, Sherlock is in the hospital wing."

Hermione quickly rose to her feet and exited through the portrait together with Harry. During their short trip, she bombarded him with questions about what had happened, occasionally interjecting with something along the lines of "You could have died!" until they arrived at the hospital wing.

They didn't go in immediately, because Dumbledore's imposing voice could be heard through the door. Hermione insisted to wait until they had finished talking to enter the hospital wing, refusing to interrupt their conversation. Harry didn't object because the conversation interested him, and he knew it would interest Sherlock once he woke up.

"We'll need to take more precautions to ensure students don't go into the forbidden corridor," said Dumbledore. "Professor McGonagall, would you be as kind as to request the prefects to attend an urgent meeting with me? I'm sure Mycroft Holmes and Percy Weasley will be of great assistance to solve this issue, though Mycroft might take some persuasion to take part in any kind of activty. Ah Harry, come in."

Harry froze. He didn't have time to look at Hermione to gauge her reaction, because the door swung open at that very moment revealing a very kindly looking Dumbledore and a stern looking McGonagall.

"Harry, it is a pleasure to see you," said Dumbledore. "And it's a pleasure to see you as well, Ms. Granger."

"Likewise sir," Hermione was quick to say.

"It's a pleasure sir," said Harry after receiving a slight kick to his leg. He wasn't sure if he should expect to be yelled at for eavesdropping.

Dumbledore nodded towards a bed in the corner and smiled at them. Harry and Hermione nodded back in understanding and walked up to it. When they opened the curtains around the bed, the first thing they looked at wasn't Sherlock. It was Professor Snape who they couldn't take their eyes away from, partially because his penetrating stare made it feel like they could get killed if they dared to look away.

"Ouch!" said Harry, touching his scar for the second time since he had arrived at Hogwarts.

Snape did not divert his stare from Harry.

"Harry, are you okay?" asked Hermione.

"Yes, I'm—"

Without saying a word, Snape left them behind and joined Dumbledore in conversation, far enough from them so they couldn't hear what they were saying. Harry closed the curtains behind him, and looked at Sherlock.

He didn't look healthy. His face was covered in bruises, a particularly nasty cut on his right cheek still bright red, while the cheeks themselves seemed even thinner than usual, as if he hadn't eaten for days. The white, pale tone splattered across his face indicated the reason behind all of this: he had lost a lot of blood. He would recover quickly, McGonagall had promised that. But that didn't make the sight any less unsettling.

Harry glanced at Hermione. She had brought her hands to her mouth. It looked as though she had done that to keep herself from saying something, though Harry had no idea what it could be. When she did speak, Harry suspected it wasn't quite what she was stopping herself from saying.

"I should have gone with you," she whispered, so quietly Harry almost didn't hear her. "If I had gone with you, then we could have split up and each gone after him, one of us would have found him before—"

"Don't blame yourself," Harry said firmly. "It's my fault. If I had been right about where he went, then I—"

"Would have gotten in my way," Sherlock muttered.

"You are awake! " Harry cried.

"I have been awake for quite some time now Harry. You would do me a great favour to close the window—perfect. It is quite cold for October. As I was saying, it's a good thing you didn't find me. You would have misspent your precious time, my dear Harry. I believe killing a troll was a much better idea."

Hermione couldn't take it any longer. Harry suspected she had been trying to hold herself back since they had stopped fighting, but the circumstances had pushed her over the limit. She put on a rather angry face and stared at Sherlock so intently that Harry thought that if he were in his position, he would want to try to push himself away from her. But Sherlock seemed almost bored.

"You owe me an explanation," she said. "About everything!"

"I can't really offer you an explanation," he shrugged. "All I can offer you are theories—"

"About why you went after the three headed dog!"

"Ah, that is easier to explain. You see Hermione, Dumbledore is hiding something under the trapdoor. That much we know for sure. We also know that whatever he's hiding used to be inside Gringotts. I'm sure this makes it clear to the two of you why I needed to go to the dog the moment I heard about the troll, don't you agree?

The blank stares in both Harry and Hermione's face indicated that it wasn't nearly as obvious as Sherlock implied, but they both agreed that it was however, very obvious that Sherlock wouldn't volunteer information.

"If you don't want to tell us about what you think, that's fine," said Harry, raising his hand to stop Hermione from objecting. "But let us know what you saw."

"Not what I observed?" asked Sherlock, smiling.

"Not what you observed." said Harry, smiling back. Hermione seemed confused at their conversation. Harry made a mental note to explain it to her later, though he wasn't quite sure he understood the concept himself.

"When I got to the forbidden corridor, I saw the door was half-opened and the dog was roaring. I didn't see anyone in the hallway, but I did hear a few footsteps as if someone was running away from it. Once I walked inside the room, I saw Snape running from the three-headed dog. The dog was going to get him, perhaps hurt his leg. But then I did some quick thinking and decided to save him—"

"Thinking?" repeated Hermione. "You had to think to save him? He's a teacher!"

"Forgive me Hermione," said Sherlock, sounding rather annoyed. "I'll keep a person's profession in mind next time I have to decide whether it's worth having a gigantic dog's paws penetrate my chest, break two ribs and throw me against the wall causing me to nearly have a lung perforated."

Hermione paled slightly at the not very, but still more graphic than she wished description of his injury. Harry himself was a little disconcerted. It was hard not to when you heard a boy calmly describing his painful, life threatening injuries.

"In any case, things went just as planned. I got injured and saved Snape."

Harry blinked. "Getting injured was part of your plan?"

"I'd rather have caught the person trying to steal the stone," Sherlock shrugged. "But I had planned getting injured if I couldn't do that, yes. Snape being there was also a happy coincidence."

Hermione stared at him blankly, as if trying to make sure he hadn't gotten hit in the head too hard by the dog. "Why would you want to be hurt?"

"That, I'm not telling," laughed Sherlock, finding some amusement in the situation. "Tell me Harry, did you by any chance hear Dumbledore mention anything about placing prefects near the forbidden corridor to stop people from entering?"

Harry looked at Hermione, who was equally in shock as he was, before answering.

"How did you know?"

To Harry's surprise, Sherlock laughed.

"Ah Harry! If I just went ahead and told you, there would be no fun in it, would there? No Harry, I would really appreciate if you just waited for a bit. I'll tell both of you about my reasoning for everything once we are not, but not one second before. All you need to know is that the game is afoot and I have officially become a player of it, even if you two are the only ones aware of it. I have made my first move. But enough of that for now! Harry, you would earn my eternal gratitude if you would please open the window again. I rather miss the cold wind now."

* * *

><p><em><strong>And so, Holmes makes his first move! It's time to see how the plot changes because of his actions.<strong>_

_**First things first: 4 chapters from now, I'll rename the story "Harry Potter and the World's Greatest Detective." Just letting you guys know in advance so it doesn't seem like a sudden change.**_

_**This chapter was originally a lot longer, covering up to the Quiddich game. But when I realized it was around eight thousand words long, I figured it would be a better idea to release it as two different chapters.**_

_**##On Harry, Hermione & Sherlock's development##**_

_**Figured I might address this. One thing I included with Sherlock is that he explains things to a larger degree than he does in the Doyle stories, because I like to believe he used to not mind explaining the obvious to his friends as a kid until he had to do it so many times he eventually got bored with it.**_

_**Another thing is that this chapter began to show the hopefully gradual change Harry will have, as Sherlock is bound to influence him slightly. **_

_**I'm not trying to make Harry and Hermione come off as too emotional, but Harry had abusive stepparents and Hermione is socially awkward. Ron is what kept the group stable during the first few years when they were still very young children. He was the normal boy that taught Harry what being normal felt like. Without Ron and his easygoing nature, I felt that Harry and Hermione might be just a tiny bit more emotional since they have no normal friend to balance them out—on the contrary, they have Sherlock Holmes, who is definitely not normal. Nothing big in their changes and they aren't going to play a major part in the series, in fact they are going to stop being emphasized as they grow older and stop doubting themselves so much. **_

_**Jesus, I need to stop with the long author notes. I'm so sorry. Thanks for all the reviews, they are all much appreciated. **_


	8. Afraid of Winning

Sherlock's mood improved greatly in November, a change Harry attributed to the cold weather the boy seemed to be rather fond of. Unlike most of their fellow first-years(and Fred and George), Sherlock didn't seem to care much for the snow that covered the school grounds. He seemed to be far more pleased by the slow, chilly breezes that came with the weather than anything else. He would constantly sit by an open window, seemingly lost in thought, a feat that would never fail to get him yelled at by Hermione("You're going to get sick!").

The cold wind made Harry's entire body feel as if it would freeze any second, but it seemed burning hot when compared to how cold his feet were; Quiddich season had begun. Harry hadn't neglected his practice at all, but still had an uncomfortable feeling that perhaps he could be practising harder. The only thing that kept Harry from blaming himself too much was the knowledge that if it was at all possible to practice harder, Oliver Wood would surely have forced him to do so.

It wasn't just Wood who was obsessed with the upcoming match. All Gryffindors seemed to regard the match against Slytherin as a sort of war, one they would surely blame Harry for losing. Harry didn't know what was worse—people who complained loudly that he would ruin their chances of winning the match or people who hailed him as Gryffindor's saviour.

Harry was thankful to have Hermione as a friend. He didn't know how else he could have gotten through the amount of schoolwork they were getting without her. Normally, Sherlock would have helped Harry to get through his homework, but he was too busy investigating, by Wood's request, the mystery of who leaked the fact Harry had joined the team. He also seemed fairly busy with his own side projects, but by now Harry knew better than to expect an explanation. Hermione however didn't accept it as easily as Harry.

"Doesn't that just seem a bit weird to you?" said Hermione, grabbing Harry by the shoulder with a strength he would hardly have credited her with. "He doesn't explain what he's doing at all!"

Sherlock was, as Hermione often complained, prone to staying silent for quite some time, never revealing what he was thinking until he had a burst of energy in which he told them all he had been thinking of up until that point.

Though she still complained about him, Harry was happy to see that they were no longer fighting, not seriously at least. They would still point out things about each other's behaviour that bothered them, but their complaints were far more superficial than before. It was kind of funny to watch them discuss classes and theories Harry couldn't possibly care less about regardless of how hard he tried, in an almost affectionate tone.

Professor McGonagall seemed worried about their new friendship at first, at one point asking Harry to speak to her after class and explain what had happened that made them change their mind about each other. After he assured her that no one had cast any sort of spell, illegal or otherwise, on either one of them, she seemed quite pleased by their new friendship. Sherlock and Hermione were by far her best students, as Transfiguration was one of the classes Sherlock seemed legitimately interested in. He had once confided in Harry, in the vaguest of terms, why he seemed to care so much about the class.

"Harry, don't you think that wands seem rather useless at short range combat? Fortunately, Transfiguration is about more than just wands, as our dear teacher showed to us in the first day of class."

Hermione's behaviour changed in a strange manner. She was still rigorous about breaking rules, but she had become a much warmer person in general. She seemed to care more about how Sherlock and Harry felt, often asking if they needed help with homework and if they had gotten enough sleep.

The day before Harry's first Quiddich match, after classes had ended, they found themselves walking by the frozen lake and discussing what the dog should be hiding. Or to be more exact, Harry and Hermione were discussing it, while Sherlock gazed at the horizon pretending not to hear them. This continued for the rest of the day, until Harry's thoughts drifted from Nicolas Flamel and the mysterious item to his Quiddich match.

After dinner, Harry noticed cold sweat dripping from his forehead as he sat in the Gryffindor common room, trying to calm his nerves before going to sleep. He wasn't sure how to deal with the nervousness; he wasn't even sure if what he was feeling really _was_ nervousness. Harry had been nervous before, many times in his life. It felt very similar to the disquieting voice screaming inside his chest at that moment.

But it wasn't the same.

"I'd ask you about your thoughts," said Sherlock, letting his body fall against the comfortable red chair, "but you are rather easy to read, if you don't mind me saying it."

Harry didn't reply. He felt so dizzy he thought he would faint if he moved his head to respond.

"I see you're a bit sceptical Harry," said Sherlock, carelessly glancing at Hermione who sat in a corner doing her homework. "You aren't sure what exactly you are feeling, isn't that right?"

Harry instantly looked up, all dizziness miraculously gone.

"I'll tell you what you are feeling Harry. I'll tell you what you have been feeling since you took down that troll by yourself, since the whispers that have followed you since you arrived in the castle became louder."

Harry shifted around in his chair uncomfortably. There was something unsettling about your best friend being so sure(and so correct) of things you hadn't admitted even to yourself and certaintly never explicitly told him about. He had indeed began feeling strange around the time he defeated the troll.

Still sitting in his comfortable chair, Sherlock moved forward slightly.

"Harry, you aren't afraid of losing tomorrow's match," he said. "No Harry, it's much worse. You are afraid of winning."

There were many things he wanted to say, to the point Harry opened his mouth and produced an awkward sound, with a good humoured face, as if he were trying to make a sarcastic quip about it but couldn't quite find the wit for it.

"I want to win," Harry finally said, giving up on the attempt to be sarcastic.

"You want to win," Sherlock acknowledged. "However, you are still afraid of it."

Harry blinked. He didn't know what to say to that, mostly because he wasn't sure of what that actually meant.

"What do you mean by—"

"Of course!" said Sherlock, jumping out of his chair, looking stupefied. "The explosive chessmen were but a ruse! How could I have been so dense? The answer was staring at me from the beginning! Katie Bell is the one who leaked the fact you were the seeker! She mentioned it to her friend who—of course! It's all clear now!"

Grabbing his winter overcoat, Sherlock exited through the portrait without saying a single word to Harry, who still stared at the chair Sherlock had up until that point been resting in, feeling a kind of annoyance he wasn't properly able to express due to the sheer ridiculousness of the scene. Nonetheless, his annoyance must still have showed to some degree, as Hermione sat beside him displaying a concerned look.

"Harry, did something happen?"

"No," he said quickly. "It's just that I keep thinking about tomorrow's match and then Sherlock said some things that...forget it, it's not important."

"It is important!" said Hermione, closing her book to dedicate her full attention to their conversation and moving closer to Harry. "He sometimes says things that just get to you. Trust me, I know. What did he say?"

"Well, he said I wasn't afraid of losing," began Harry, sounding out each word trying to find some sort of meaning in them. "But that I was afraid of winning. Then he stormed off before explaining because he found out that Katie Bell was the one who accidentally let out the fact I'm playing tomorrow," he added, frowning upon that thought.

"Oh Harry, I think I understand what he means," said Hermione, trying not to meet Harry's inquisitive look. "Harry, what he's saying is that—he found out about Katie? No! He is going to mess up everything! It wasn't on purpose!" she said, storming off the Gryffindor tower.

"Great!" said Harry to no one, throwing his arms high up in the air, resigning himself to the fact he wouldn't get any answers tonight and that his friends would sometimes act in ways he wouldn't understand.

Harry went to bed still thinking about what Sherlock what had said, but as soon as his head hit the pillow he knew his dreams wouldn't be about anything but Quiddich. It didn't take much longer than five minutes for Harry to fall asleep. The morning soon came, bringing with it all the worries Harry had put away during the night.

"You should eat something Harry," said Hermione, pushing a bowl of delicious looking fried sausages toward him. Then, turning to Sherlock, her tone changed completely. "I can't believe you were going to tell Wood about it!"

"Well excuse me for not knowing her owl had been eaten by a cat!" Sherlock snapped back. "Surely that justifies her actions, but you can't blame me for not thinking something so illogical—I mean it's a cat—ah Harry, I suppose you want to know the full story?"

"Is it important in any way, shape or form for me to know it?" asked Harry, still staring at his food.

"Well, no," Sherolck admitted. "However, it is a fine example of the art of deduc—"

"Then I'd really rather not hear about it. Can you explain what you said yesterday instead?"

"What did I say yesterday?"

"Forget it," snapped Harry, grabbing a single toast and walking to the Quiddich field despite being at least one hour early.

By the time of the game, the entire school seemed to have found its way to the stands, binoculars in hand and loud screams coming out of their mouths. It didn't seem that much different from a Muggle sporting event in atmosphere, even if the setting was completely different. Sherlock, Hermione, Seamus, Neville and Dean(who never stopped comparing Quiddich to soccer) had gotten some of the best seats in the entire stand.

"We are really high above the ground," said Hermione.

"We are called Sherlock Holmes and Hermione Granger," said Sherlock in a deadpan tone, which Hermione ignored.

"I'm worried about Harry. What if he falls from his broomstick?"

Sherlock stopped to consider the question for a moment, then with a shrug, "I suppose he would get hurt then."

Meanwhile, Oliver Wood had just finished his rousing speech which did nothing but provoke laughs from Fred and George, who were familiar with his routine.

As the group began to disperse itself for a moment before entering the field, before he could stop himself, Harry walked up to Wood.

"Hey—erm, Oliver?" called Harry uncertainly.

Wood turned back, looking confused, as though he were so used to bothering people with Quiddich schemes that the feeling of having someone willingly start a conversation with him seemed entirely alien.

"What is it Harry? Getting cold feet?" he asked dancing excitedly, clapping his hands together to psych himself up.

"What does it mean to be afraid of winning?"

He wasn't sure why he had asked that. It had been on his mind, for sure, but why ask Wood of all people? Regardless of his reason, to his surprise, Wood stopped clapping almost immediately and adopted an almost paternal smile. Wood then gently hit Harry on the shoulder and pointed to a bench in the locker room, where they both sat in.

"That's an interesting question, Harry," said Wood. He sounded almost nostalgic. "Why do you ask?"

"A friend said I was afraid of winning," said Harry, feeling rather stupid when he heard his own question.

"I see," said Wood thoughtfully. He stayed quiet for longer Harry thought was possible for him to be, given how the match would start in a few minutes. "Harry, being afraid of winning is something we all feel at one point in our lives. Did you ever wonder if you were as special as people thought you were?"

Harry opened his mouth, but he couldn't answer. There were so many times that had happened, he wasn't sure which example to pick. The Dursleys made sure to make him doubt every compliment he ever received from a teacher, sure, but that barely compared to the pressure he felt since he found out he was a wizard. Hagrid, Olivander,McGonagall, even Sherlock to a degree. They all seemed to expect great things from him.

His silence was all the answer Wood needed.

"At one point, we are all afraid of the possibility of being _too good_," said Wood so kindly Harry looked up to make sure he was still talking to the same person. "We start to think, how can those people expect so much from me? How can I possibly be that good? What right do I have to be that good? I'm just a normal person!"

"Did you ever feel like that?" asked Harry.

"Of course I did. Then I realized I really was a great Keeper," he added, after some thought.

"Right," said Harry, unable to suppress a laugh.

"I don't care if you are the man who killed you-know-who or whatever," said Wood, shrugging off the thought of a murderous overlord as if it weren't worth paying attention to. "What I do care about is that you are the best Seeker I have ever seen. I wouldn't be surprised if you were better than Weasley, and he could have played for England if he wanted to. Don't be afraid of being great, Harry. You can do this."

This cheered Harry up a little.

"Thanks."

"Say, who told you about being afraid of winning? Is he any good at Quiddich?" Wood asked, excitedly.

"I don't think so," Harry answered hesitantly. He wasn't sure about Sherlock's talent at Quiddich, but he was very much sure that he wouldn't be interested in playing it.

"Oh." Wood seemed disappointed, but he quickly recovered. "Well then, enough talking. Let's get out there and win!"

"Yes, captain!" cried Harry jokingly, but Wood seemed to take the shout seriously, because he looked at Harry with an undeniable sense of pride. Then, patting him on the back one more time, he dragged him to the open field.

The cheers were tremendous. The loudest sound Harry could remember had almost deafened him, when Dudley woke him up with a loud buzzer right beside his ear. This felt louder.

"Don't get overwhelmed Harry," said Fred winking as he passed by him and posed to the crowd.

"Don't stress over it," said George, also passing by Harry and posing to the crowd. Harry wondered if Sherlock had told them he was nervous.

The referee for the match was Madam Hooch, the flying instructor. She glared at the red Gryffindors and the green Slytherins, explaining with a stern expression that any sort of cheating or rough play would not be tolerated. Wood shook hands with the Slytherin Captain, Marcus Flint. It seemed to Harry as though Flint were trying to break Wood's hand, but the Gryffindor Captain did not show any signs of pain. In fact, he showed no signs of emotion at all.

They mounted their broomsticks, and once Madam Hooch had blown her whistle, the game started at once.

"Yer gettin' along so far?"

"Hagrid!"

Hermione moved out of the way to give Hagrid space to join them, but Sherlock wisely stayed put as Hagrid was more than capable of pushing through the crowd.

"We are getting along just fine," said Hermione. Hagrid raised an eyebrow, as he noticed her less than happy expression. "I just don't like the way he pretends he knows nothing about Quiddich to avoid my questions."

"Hermione, I'm not pretending anything. I really don't know anything about the sport aside from the basic rules," said Sherlock as Angelina brilliantly threw the Quaffle above the Keeper's head, scoring ten points for Gryffindor. "Why would I waste space in my brain with information I'm never going to use? That sounds like a rather foolish thing to do, don't you agree?"

"Are you implying something?" Hermione asked, shooting Sherlock a vicious glare as she did so.

"Now, yer two can talk about that later, somethin' are more important than that," said Hagrid, pointing to the field. "Let's watch our Harry win this game."

High up in the air, where the three of them could barely see him, Harry observed the game almost like an outsider. Wood's plan was for Harry to stay out of the field until he caught sight of the Snitch, which would minimize his chances of getting injured, therefore giving them a better chance of winning.

Every so often, when his teammates scored, Harry looped around in his broomstick to celebrate, but he was right back to hunting for the Snitch a moment later. Harry did not catch sight of the Snitch for the longest time, but more than once, a Bludger had caught sight of him and would have knocked him off his broomstick if not for Fred and George who darted toward him like bullets and knocked the Bludger away.

The crowd did not scream, but instead whispered as they caught sight of the Snitch. It was common Quiddich courtesy not to make a big deal out of sightings of the Snitch, as it could give the opposite team an idea of where the Snitch was, something no cheering group of fans would want. The effect was usually the same, as combined whispers could prove to be quite loud, but it was the spirit of the tradition that mattered.

Fortunately for Gryffindor, Harry didn't need any pointers, for he had already seen the flash of gold in the field. He dived toward it thinking nothing, but feeling that he was moments away from winning.

"UNBELIEVABLE!" screamed Lee Jordan, who was doing the commentary for the match.

Marcus Flint had appeared between Harry and the Snitch. Between the thunderous rage from the stands that followed, and the impact from the crash, Harry lost sight of the Snitch.

"You take sports too seriously," said Sherlock. "It's not surprising that the Slytherins would do that to keep their team in the game."

"I didn't say anything," said Hermione, without taking her eyes off the game.

Sherlock seemed puzzled. "I don't recall implying you did," he said, looking at her hands, folded in a way that they gripped her own arms tightly.

"Play nice, yer two," said Hagrid, tapping his binoculars laughing and looking down the field once more.

It seemed as though the game was about to settle for a slower pace, when Harry's broomstick suddenly dived, then flew upward, then to the sides, as if attracted by an invisible magnet. Harry couldn't turn it, he couldn't move it at all. It was out of control.

Sherlock was the first one to notice. "Something is wrong with Harry's broomstick."

"Nonsense," said Hagrid, nonetheless glancing upwards. "He is actin' a bit weird, but he should be fine. A Nimbus Two Thousand doesn't break that easily!"

"Indeed it doesn't," agreed Sherlock. He didn't sound concerned. He sounded interested.

A few minutes later, the rest of the audience took notice of how Harry was having a wild duel with his broomstick to stay in the air, as he was constantly forced to zig-zag from one side to the other. Hermione grabbed Hagrid's binoculars, pointed at the Slytherin stand and gasped.

"Snape is jinxing Harry!" she cried.

"Nonsense," said Sherlock. "There's no way Snape is jinxing Harry. If anything, he is... ."he trailed off, his voice giving way to his thoughts.

"Remember the time we visited you in the hospital wing? Harry brushed it off, but I know he felt his head hurt after Snape stared at him."

"Snape wasn't the only one staring at him then. Besides, I would hardly associate giving somebody a headache with trying to kill them."

"I'm going to stop him," she mumbled, tossing the binoculars back to Hagrid and trying to escape within the crowd.

Sherlock grabbed her by the wrist.

"You're not going," he said sternly.

"I would be the first one to think that a teacher couldn't be capable of doing something like this, but you know how much he hates Harry! And he was in the forbidden corridor when you got hurt, wasn't he? What if he was trying to steal what the dog was guarding?" Hermione tried, in vain, to free herself from Sherlock's grip. "Let me go!"

"Please, trust me," he said. "Snape is not the villain here. He's the obvious suspect, I agree, but I don't think he is jinxing Harry. Please, just this time, trust me."

Hesitantly, Hermione stopped struggling, and walked back to her spot to watch the rest of the game.

"If Harry gets hurt, I'll never forgive you," she mumbled.

It was likely that she would get angry at Sherlock, because at that moment, it seemed to Harry that he wouldn't be able to control his broomstick for much longer. The Weasley twins had began flying around him to repel the Blugers, but that did little to improve his mood.

"Don't worry Harry!" screamed Fred, hitting the Bludger towards the Slytherin team. "If you fall, we'll catch you!"

That made him feel worse. He didn't want to be a burden to the rest of the team. That was what he was afraid of. Harry wanted to win, he wanted to catch sight of that golden flash once more—and he did. The Snitch was just under him. Just under him might have been inaccurate, as though it was under him, the height between the two was considerably dangerous.

An idea formed in Harry's head. He remembered what Wood had said. He remembered he shouldn't be afraid of doing things nobody else had ever done before. Then he remembered what Fred had said a second before. Well, he better have meant it. Exhaustion overcoming his ability to think clearly, having nothing else on his mind but the desire to win, Harry slowly let go of his wild broomstick.

Then he jumped.

The crowd gasped, but Harry wasn't paying attention to that. He only had one shot at doing this, and he couldn't waste it. The distance between him and the Snitch lessened by the second, as did the distance between him and the ground. Harry heard Wood shout something, but he paid no mind to it. He outstretched his fingertips as far as he could, and he whipped his arm forward.

WHAM! Fred and George Weasley hadn't managed to catch Harry so to speak, but they had managed to fly just under him before he hit the ground, breaking his fall and falling together with him in the mud.

For a second, it seemed as though nobody in the world would ever say anything again, which seemed like a dumb notion as the crowd roared like the world had ended. But Harry still felt like that until George's voice brought him back to reality.

"Ouch—Harry, did we win?"

Harry glanced at his broken arm, still holding tightly to the golden Snitch.

"It looks like we did," said Fred thoughtfully.

Harry's Nimbus Two Thousand fell, just barely missing the three of them.

"Good thing it didn't fly out of the field," said Fred.

"Indeed," said George. Then, the impact in his head slowly giving its way to rational thought, with a maniacal grin, "We won!"

"You caught the Snitch!" cried Fred, hugging Harry as if he were trying to rip his head off. "You jumped out of your broomstick and still caught the bloody thing!"

"I'm insane," said Harry. He was merely stating the fact to himself, trying to reconcile his action with what had just happened.

"Yes you are," said George. "Welcome to the family."

At that moment, Wood dashed toward the group, jumped out of his broom, and instead of helping his players to their feet, jumped at them joining them in their hug, further spreading the mud from the ground on all of them.

"We won! Even though the odds were against us!" Wood seemed absolutely delighted with the fact they had won despite their circumstances. "Amazing catch Harry!"

"Ouch!" said Harry, the adrenaline wearing off and the pain from an almost free fall settling in.

Madam Hooch was the next to land, first making sure he was fine to go to the hospital wing by himself. Then, the rest of the Gryffindor team landed, congratulating Harry for his catch.

Despite knowing he had done an absolutely stupid thing, upon seeing all the smiling faces around him, and the Weasley twins' melodramatic hug, he couldn't help it—he smiled too.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Sorry for the delay this week. I had a friend help me proofread this chapter before I posted it, which I forgot to take into account when making my writing schedule. Let me know if the extra hand I had in proofreading made the writing in this chapter more pleasant to read. <strong>_

_**In any case, this chapter was meant to develop Harry a bit and show how Sherlock had influenced him. I remembered that line from the Sorting Hat about being eager to prove himself, and decided to run with it a bit. **_

_**I received a pm asking me about when the plot is going to start vastly differing from the books, since for now the changes are rather minor, and I figured it was a good thing to include my answer here in case you guys were wondering. The end of Book 1 should mark the beginning of serious changes, hell every chapter after this one should already increase the number of changes significantly, but Chamber of Secrets is when we go crazy. Chamber of Secrets is when Sherlock should be at his "zone" so to speak. **_

_**Three more chapters until the title changes from "The Butterfly Effect" to "Harry Potter and the World's Greatest Detective." I don't like having to change the name, and I quite like Butterfly Effect, but there's a rather famous Harry Potter fanfic with that name, so I need to change it to avoid confusion. Sorry about that guys.**_

_**Oh, I would appreciate if you guys could let me know if you feel if I"broke" the atmosphere of the novels during this chapter. I was trying to keep it realistic while changing Harry just slightly due to his influence with Sherlock, so I felt the game was important to include.**_

_**In any case, next chapter is the Mirror of Erised, something I have really been looking forward to writing. Thank you all for reading, and I hope the story remains enjoyable for you all!**_


	9. The Mysterious Student

_**Author's note: The chapter was slightly longer than I predicted, but I couldn't find a good point to split it that didn't make the beginning of the next chapter feel strangely disconnected. **_

_**By the way, since a few of you guys have told me(a few by pm and a few by review) that you didn't like the name change in the fic, I'm just going to keep it the way it is. "The Butterfly Effect" will be my cross to bear. **_

* * *

><p>Though the castle grew colder as winter went on, people grew warmer as Christmas drew nearer, which Harry was very thankful for. If it weren't for Christmas, he suspected Hermione wouldn't have forgiven him for jumping out of his broom, at least not so quickly, and he knew she wouldn't have forgiven Sherlock for refusing to explain his reasons for not suspecting Snape. He himself felt a little suspicious of the professor, but Sherlock's stoic assurance that Snape was innocent was enough to allow him to trust him, even if he disliked him.<p>

Snape seemed to detest Harry, and the feeling was more than mutual. It was hard to shake off the feeling that he detested him more than any other student. While Snape didn't hesitate to take points off any student who wasn't a Slytherin, the way he acted towards Harry seemed to go beyond that. It seemed almost like he looked for things to punish him for.

Nonetheless, despite the cold weather that infested the dungeons worse than any other part of the castle, Potions was much more pleasant than it once had been. Sherlock no longer paralysed Hermione's arms for the duration of the class, and in exchange she barely ever attempted to answer any questions Snape might had. Draco Malfoy, who never missed an opportunity to be unpleasant, tried to provoke Harry about not having a family to go back to during Christmas break.

Harry didn't care. Sherlock was going to stay at Hogwarts during Christmas, and that was all the family he needed. For the first time in his life, he would be spending Christmas with someone who actually liked him, even if that someone wasn't too sentimental. Malfoy couldn't take that away from him no matter how much he tried.

It didn't seem like Potions would end in a pleasant note though, because Sherlock decided to stay behind after everyone else had left. Harry told Hermione to go ahead to their next class, and hid behind the door to eavesdrop on their conversation.

"Professor Snape, I would like to thank you for a very fascinating lecture today," said Sherlock. "I had no idea that poisonous Potions could be used like that."

Snape, who was putting away the supplies he used for the class, turned to him at once, regarding Sherlock as if he thought he was being mocked in some way no other student had ever tried to use before. It occurred to Harry that no student had ever tried to spend more time than necessary with Snape.

"If you're as fascinated as you claim, then you should not to waste my time with idle chatter, Holmes."

"As you wish professor," said Sherlock, bowing slightly as he spoke, swiftly enough that Harry wasn't sure whether he was mocking him or truly showing respect. It seemed as though Snape was equally unsure of the boy's intentions, because he did not take any points from Gryffindor. Instead, he continued to stare until Sherlock spoke again. "Then I shall not waste your time and get straight to the point. Who did you protect Harry from?"

Harry was very thankful that he was hiding behind a door, because he was unable to repress his laughter as Sherlock spoke. He was simply so blunt it was hard to take him seriously.

If Snape was surprised, he didn't let it show, for all he did was raise his eyebrow inquisitively. "I do not know what you are talking about Holmes, and I suggest you leave before I lose my patience."

"Professor Snape, I know that because you are not an idiot, you would not attempt to curse Harry, however much you hate him—if you will excuse my lack of tact—while standing in such a visible spot. It is no secret that most of this school loathes your entire being and would love an excuse to have you gone from the castle, so if you decided to cast any sort of spell during the game, I believe it goes without saying that it was not one of the kind that would give students an excuse to complain about your behaviour to the headmaster, is it? You were protecting Harry from something else. From _someone _else."

Snape seemed torn between appearing disgusted at the suggestion of protecting Harry and surprised at how precisely Sherlock had worded his deductions. He settled for somewhere in the middle, like a man who hates dogs watching an admittedly impressive trick but still loathing the animal.

"If I were protecting Potter," he spoke slowly, visibly disgusted by the idea, "then surely I would not tell an irresponsible, bothersome child who deludes himself into thinking that the subject is any of his business."

"It is my business, actually," he responded flippantly. "Harry is one of the few people I've met that can handle a conversation with me without making me walk away in disgust of their stupidity, and it would be a pity if that number were to go down. I doubt it would ever go up again."

"Detention, Holmes," Snape said coldly, slamming the door of his locker of ingredients. "Tomorrow night, my dungeon."

"Pity, I was hoping to serve detention in the same place as Harry. He's serving detention tomorrow for fighting the troll. But in any case, need I remind you I saved your life a few days ago?"

Snape's face contorted into pure, cold fury. He seemed to be especially angry because he seemed to acknowledge that Sherlock had a point, but that he felt almost insulted that Sherlock dared to bring it up.

"I won't ask you to give me a name," said Sherlock, looking Snape in the eye. "I understand you are far too concerned with my safety for that, for which I'm the most thankful. I just want you to point me towards a clue. If your assessment of my intelligence is correct, then you don't need to worry about me getting hurt as I will never find the answers I'm looking for. Not only that, but we will be even with each other. Doesn't that sound like a nice deal?"

Snape opened his mouth, changed his mind, gaped at him in disbelief, and then said, "You would do better than to judge life to be on the same level as information, Holmes. This idiocy will get you killed in the future."

"A man's life is only worth as much as he lives for," he answered without missing a beat. "I live for things like this, Professor Snape. Give me a clue, and we'll be even."

Thirty seconds passed, but it seemed much longer. Snape regarded Sherlock with an expression Harry had never seen before. It seemed something between begrudging respect and pure bewilderment.

"You have lost twenty points for Gryffindor for your gross attempt at blackmailing and mistaken understanding of how Life Debts work," he said smoothly, which would have surely made Hermione gasp if she were there. "And your detention hours are doubled."

"Sounds like a fair price for your respect," said Sherlock. "And for your information."

"You are an idiotic child who will get himself in more trouble than he's worth and who will never earn my respect."

"No sir, I believe you are mistaking me for someone else. I'm Sherlock Holmes."

Snape thought for a moment. "Your brother, Percy Weasley. Talk to him."

"Thank you very much professor," said Sherlock, bowing once more before immediately walking away from him.

When Sherlock left the dungeon, he didn't seem even slightly surprised at Harry's presence just outside the door. He nodded to acknowledge his presence, then the two walked up the staircase.

"Should I even bother asking—"

"No."

To Harry, that was all he needed to hear to drop that line of questioning, but Hermione, who they soon met a few minutes later and who was a bit angry at how they disappeared between classes, wasn't as easy to convince.

"You nearly got yourself killed _on purpose?_ Just so you could get a bit of information?"

Sherlock looked at Harry in the search of an expression just as shocked as his, but when he realized Harry found that Hermione's point was a very valid one, he rested his head on his left hand as if listening to a very tedious class.

"It doesn't matter how many times you repeat your question, reality isn't going to alter itself to make it easier for you to understand it. What you should be asking is why I thought it was necessary for me to get myself nearly killed, and the answer to that is so obvious I don't need to say it out loud."

Out of pride and nothing else, Hermione didn't insist on a clarification of what was so obvious that didn't need clarifying. Harry didn't insist either, because he knew when to leave Sherlock alone.

The next night, when Harry left to serve his detention for fighting the troll, Hermione was sitting in the common room with her legs crossed and ten books beside her, all of which had titles such as Famous Wizards of the 20th Century. She shot him a slightly resentful look for not helping her with the search for Nicolas Flamel, but Harry pretended not to see it. He did feel curious about it, but Sherlock seemed to have a general idea of who he was, and that was enough for Harry, even if Sherlock had been curiously bitter about how he found out about Nicolas Flamel.

Harry's detention wasn't too severe. All he had to do was help McGonagall organize a few books in her office for a few hours. He suspected that despite her angry tone back then, she didn't think he deserved a harsh punishment for what he had done. She had given him a detention more to let him know how reckless he had been than anything else. If he had been just a bit luckier, he could have gotten away without a detention at all. Sherlock, on the other hand, was probably having a much harsher detention in the dungeons.

"You may go now," she nodded towards the door. "Don't do anything rash from this point on, Potter."

Harry apologized for fighting the troll once more, even if he didn't quite regret it, and closed the door behind him as he made his way to the Gryffindor tower. Then, the next thing he knew, he felt a jet of light hit him in the back and he fell to the ground.

"_Rennervate."_

When he awoke, Harry's first impression was that he was not at Hogwarts anymore. He couldn't be. It seemed more like an abandoned warehouse than anything else. On either side of him, were countless empty green barrels like those used to carry oil in the Muggle world. Behind him, there was nothing but darkness. In front of him, there was the only hint that they were still at Hogwarts in form of a fifth-year student, wearing wizard robes and smiling kindly at Harry.

"Forgive me for the stunning spell, but I believe you wouldn't be inclined to accept my invitation otherwise."

"Where are we?" asked Harry.

"The Room of Requirement. I required an adequately shady place of encounter for the two of us, Mr. Harry Potter."

Harry wanted to ask him how he knew his name, but he stopped himself from doing so as he remembered his scar.

"I see that you are not very happy with your situation," observed the man, sounding curious about Harry's emotions. "Neither am I, really. This took quite a bit more effort than I wish it did. Effort is not something I'm fond of, Mr. Potter. But it is a necessary evil when dealing with men such as your friend, Sherlock Holmes."

Harry froze upon the mention of Sherlock. Unlike himself, Sherlock wasn't famous, nor did he have any sort of physical characteristic like Harry's scar that made him instantly recognizable. Whoever he was, this man knew Sherlock from before he entered Hogwarts, for Harry had spent enough time with Sherlock since school started to know everyone that had talked to him.

Then, he remembered. He remembered what Sherlock had mentioned about Malfoy before. They had met in some sort of wizard ball, with Sherlock perhaps representing his deceased parents, though Harry hadn't enquired about the details. If Malfoy, who was from a family of dark wizards, was present in that ball, then maybe... .

"Are you his enemy?" Harry called out uncertainly, with the same tone that he would have used to ask a question in Transfiguration class.

"Did he tell you that?" Harry did not respond, but the man seemed highly amused by the question. "My dear Potter, I am so much more than his enemy. But if you must use such titles, then I suppose I am his enemy in the way that I oppose his ridiculous plans."

"You...oppose him?"

"Why yes, and that is why I called you here, Mr. Potter. You see, you nonetheless know by now that the school is guarding the famous Philosopher's Stone in the forbidden corridor guarded by that very unpleasant dog you previously met."

Harry didn't know this, but he didn't let his face reflect that fact. Instead, he bluffed his way through the conversation.

"Nicolas Flamel," he mumbled, trying to sound as if he knew everything, though that was the only piece of information he really knew.

"Correct. After Flamel's stone was nearly stolen from Gringotts, it was probably decided that Hogwarts was the safest place to hide it. Now, it might interest you to know that your friend Hagrid has told my informants that unicorns have been recently harmed in the forbidden forest. Unicorn's blood is magical," he added, upon seeing the blank stare in Harry's face. "It extends your life, even if you are near death. But that little time you gain is cursed, so it would probably be better not to have any time at all, if you ask me."

"Why would that interest me?" asked Harry, cowering away instinctively.

The fifth-year student's smile dampened slightly, seemingly disappointed at Harry's slow wits.

"You are Harry Potter. Surely you can think of at least one dark lord who is dying—figuratively speaking of course—for a chance to live once more. One who would be willing to curse his own life until he grabbed the Philosopher's Stone and was able to resurrect himself."

Harry opened his mouth wide in horror. He did not know that the Philosopher's Stone had power over life and death, which contributed to his shock, but the boy in front of him seemed to think he was merely slow witted.

"Voldemort," Harry muttered, feeling stunned.

"That is the conclusion I have arrived at, and Sherlock agrees with me. I'm sure Dumbledore has reached that conclusion as well."

Harry stood silent for a moment, then, remembering why he was having that conversation with that stranger, "What do you want from me?"

"My dear, I thought it would be obvious. If Sherlock Holmes knows the strongest wizard of all time is trying to invade the school he is at, what do you think he is going to do?"

A chill went down Harry's spine. "He's going to try to stop him."

"Correct," nodded the boy. "So I would like to ask you, as his friend, to convince him that it would be for everyone's best interests if he did not try to stop any sort of dark lord from resurrecting."

"I'm not going to stop him," cried Harry, with a courageousness he didn't know he was capable of. "If he wants to stop Voldemort, then I'm going to help him! Voldemort killed my parents. If he comes back, then he's going to—"

"Yes, quite," cut the boy, sneering at Harry's outburst. "Mr. Potter, Sherlock Holmes isn't going to stop anyone. He is just going to get himself killed. Your little group won't be much more of a nuisance against him. If you try to stop him, Dumbledore will find your bodies the next day."

"Is that a threat?"

"A threat?" the boy laughed. "No, my dear Potter. It's a fact. Your group will get itself killed if it tries to do anything. I won't stop you if you try to, though. God knows I don't have the energy to keep up with Sherlock. But if you could hear my advice, you would take a great weight off my shoulders."

Harry shook his head fiercely.

"Thought so," said the boy, clearly saddened by Harry's answer. "There is no way around it then. But before you go, I must tell you something that I'm not sure you fully understand. The wizarding world is very different from the Muggle world you are used to, but not quite to the point you are imagining."

Harry didn't say anything, which prompted the boy to continue.

"Sherlock has been your gateway to the wizarding world. He has taught you what's normal, he has taught you what's insane, but he never quite taught you the difference between the two. Because Sherlock was the first person you met, you don't understand the difference between the world of wizards and the world of Sherlock Holmes. Haven't you ever noticed him, Harry, looking completely detached from the world around him?"

Harry's mind instantly went to the moment they arrived at Hogwarts. Everyone, born in a family of wizards or not, looked with their eyes filled with nothing short of wonder at the magical decorations spread throughout the castle. But not Sherlock. Sherlock merely took it all in like it was a slightly different atmosphere than he was used to, with not wonder but rather interest. He observed it all like an outsider.

"Sherlock was born to look for danger, Mr. Potter." Harry then realized how strange it was for a fifth-year student to be referring to him so formally. "Sometimes, for both wizards and Muggles, unnatural circumstances come in and devour them whole. You fall victim to uncertainty, to nervousness, because you become afraid of this unnatural atmosphere that invaded your surroundings. The Philosopher's Stone and Voldemort trying to steal it, they sound like a completely bizarre event to your regular wizard. Do you see where I'm getting at?"

Harry shook his head.

"To a regular wizard, the theft of an item that produces immortality and that could allow a dark wizard to resurrect is outside their comfort zone. It is something they want to avoid being part of, something they want other people to fix so they can go back to their regular lives. But to Sherlock, this_ is_ his comfort zone. He doesn't long for the calm everyday life your average person, wizard or Muggle, usually hopes for. He longs for the battlefield. Mr. Potter, this is the world Sherlock lives in, this is the reason he always looks so _bored._ He has never seen any action even close to what he has seen since arriving at Hogwarts, but it's what he has always longed for, even if he didn't quite know himself. You got too close to him, and as a result you are now standing before a cliff of insanity Sherlock has long ago plunged himself into."

The boy walked up to Harry. He was much taller than Harry, but he still made an effort to look him in the eye. Neither of them flinched.

"Will you take the leap, Mr. Potter? Or will you do the logical thing and step away?"

"Sherlock's my friend," Harry said firmly. That was all he needed to say.

"I was mistaken," said the boy in a small voice. "Sherlock hasn't corrupted you into becoming a reckless kid. You are one of those heroic types that always feels the need to be at the centre of the danger." He regarded Harry with a puzzled expression. "You are, in a way, just like him."

"May I leave now?" asked Harry, half sarcastically, half angrily.

"Yes," the boy responded offhandedly. "I was planning on stunning you again before taking you out, but seeing what kind of person you are destroyed all my remaining energy. Just take the door out."

Glancing back at the boy one last time before leaving, Harry did note that he was looking very tired as Harry closed the door behind him. But after Harry blinked, the door was no longer there. The room had disappeared.

* * *

><p>"My enemy?" said Sherlock after Harry had finished telling his story, seemingly vaguely interested as he ate breakfast.<p>

"He _kidnapped you_ just outside Professor McGonagall's office?" asked Hermione, dropping her toast out of shock. "You need to tell a teacher about this!"

"Yes," said Harry angrily. "Your enemy. He kidnapped me because he doesn't want us to stop Voldemort from stealing Flamel's stone!"

"Oh, you found out?" asked Sherlock, smiling. Then, with a frown, "He told you, didn't he?"

"Yes, I'm sorry for not reasoning it out myself," said Harry sarcastically. Spending time with Sherlock was visibly improving his sarcasm, though he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

"Stone? Voldemort?" asked Hermione as she looked at Sherlock, in a stern voice that warned Harry she would get mad if things weren't explained quickly.

"You can get mad in a minute," snapped Harry. "It's my turn now. Sherlock, who is this guy? Is he the one trying to steal the stone? He seemed like a fifth-year student. Maybe sixth year. How is he your enemy? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Oh, him?" said Sherlock, who had up until then gotten distracted with his own thoughts. "Don't worry about him. I doubt he's the one helping Voldemort steal the stone. What we need to know is this, Voldemort is likely too weak to steal the stone on his own. So he likely has a servant working for him. The question is... ."

"Who that servant is," completed Hermione, who gathered a general understanding of the topic.

"Correct."

Harry then whispered to Hermione everything he had found out so far, as he suspected Sherlock wouldn't say anything even after all of that. Once he was done, Hermione brought her hands to her mouth to keep herself from screaming.

"Harry, we should tell a teacher about this!"

"There's nothing we know that they don't," said Sherlock calmly. "For all that we know, the dog isn't the only thing protecting the stone. They know someone must be trying to steal it. They are not idiots. Maybe if we find out who it is that is trying to steal the stone, then we can go to them. Not before."

"You know who it is," said Hermione sharply. Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

"Why do you think that?"

"Because you think Snape isn't the thief. Knowing you, that means you suspect somebody else."

"It's more like a vague idea," admitted Sherlock. "I have the list narrowed it down to a few people, that's true. But I still don't know who it is, nor do I know if my list of suspects is correct. I plan on investigating during Christmas once I talk to Percy though, as Professor Snape told me to."

"Don't get yourself killed while I'm gone," joked Hermione, though Harry detected a hint of seriousness in her voice.

"Not until I get to the bottom of this," Sherlock joked back, this time both Harry and Hermione detecting a clear sign of seriousness in his voice.

Once the holidays had started, Harry found that his days had grown to be surprisingly less sarcastic. Sherlock's tongue wasn't as vicious when Hermione wasn't around. Many times, he had to stop himself from joking that he missed her, because he knew the joke wouldn't be received kindly. For a while, he found himself worrying about what the mysterious student and what he had said. Was that student a dark wizard? Was what he said about Sherlock true? Was Voldemort just waiting for his faithful servant to steal the stone so he could burst into the school and turn it into a school of the dark arts?

But soon he forgot about all of his worries, and he and Sherlock spent their days just pleasantly standing by the fireplace, playing wizarding chess, talking about what they would do in hypothetical situations and going outside to throw snowballs at each other. Well, Harry and the Weasley twins threw snowballs. Sherlock seemed to stay out of it for the most part, until Fred accidentally destroyed the book he was reading with a snowball. What followed was the most vengeful, strategic and methodological snowball war of all of Hogwarts' history. If somebody ever wrote a book on snowball warfare—and Harry suspected Fred and George could do it—they would describe it not as a snowball war, but as a snowball massacre where a single boy's strategies annihilated the famous Weasley twins, versed in the art of snowball fighting, and Harry Potter, the promising rookie.

On Christmas Eve, Harry staggered towards his bed barely able to move and suspecting he would have flashbacks to the snowball fight in the very same way veterans who had fought Voldemort remembered the days of darkness. When he woke up the next morning, the traumatic memories of the snowball war were adequately repressed, and he was now looking at a pile of presents.

"Merry Christmas," said Sherlock, who was already out of bed and completely dressed.

"You too," said Harry. He wanted to express surprise at having gotten presents, but he feared that Sherlock would make a sarcastic quip about it if he said anything. So instead, he just looked at his presents, then at Sherlock once more.

"Merry Christmas," repeated Sherlock. No other words were necessary.

"Hagrid sent me a flute," said Harry, laughing.

"My...uncle, I think, has sent me a violin." Sherlock seemed positively amused at the idea of playing the violin, and Harry instantly knew his ears would suffer for a while until he learned how to use it correctly.

"I'm willing to bet Mrs. Weasley sent you a sweater as well. She always makes one for everyone in the family, and must have figured you would like one."

"Tell her I said thanks," said Harry, looking at his sweater. "What is this?"

"Sweet mother of all that is unknown," whistled Sherlock, in complete and pure shock. "You got an invisibility cloak. They are really rare, and _really _useful."

"No," said Harry quickly.

"What?" asked Sherlock, feigning anger.

"Whatever you are thinking about doing with the cloak, no." Then, upon thinking a little, "Not today."

"Deal. Tomorrow we'll go to the restricted section in the library. I'm really curious about what on earth they keep there. Even Professor Snape didn't let me go there. Who sent you the cloak?"

"The note doesn't say. But it says it came from my father. From my father... ." Harry repeated, biting his lip.

Not too long after that, the Weasley twins came inside the dormitory with their hands raised high up in the air to show they had surrendered, still afraid that the war hadn't ended. After joking around during the rest of the day, they all made their way down to the Christmas feast. The twins forced Percy to join them for dinner, and regretted that Mycroft, their adoptive brother, had to go home for the holidays to handle a few things related to the Holmes family. Harry wished he had been able to stay too, for he was the only one of Sherlock's brothers currently at Hogwarts he hadn't met, being a Ravenclaw and thus not sharing a common room with him.

Once the wonderful Christmas had ended and everyone had gone to bed, before he knew it, Harry was out of bed and into the night. He didn't respond to the Fat Lady's portrait, who called out in shock when it didn't see anyone climbing through the hole. He didn't know where to go at first, but then he remembered that Sherlock wanted to go to the restricted section in the library and thought it could be fun to go there before he had the chance to. Smiling, he made his way to the restricted section. It wasn't too hard to remain hidden, thanks to the invisibility cloak.

After a few run-ins with Snape and Filtch, his heart racing, Harry found himself inside an unused classroom. In it, there was—

"A mirror," said Sherlock, appearing beside him. "Interesting."

"Sherlock!" Harry cried out. "How did you not get caught by Filtch or Snape? You are not invisible!"

"They see, they don't observe, but most of all they are predictable," he responded. "Never mind that. What is the written here?"

There was an inscription on top of the mirror. It said: _Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi_.

"I show not your face but your heart's desire," said Sherlock, gesturing towards the inscription. "Interesting. A mirror that shows us what we desire the most? Harry, if you don't mind, look at the mirror will you?"

Feeling slightly annoyed at being Sherlock's test subject, Harry did so. He stood right in front of the mirror and looked right at it. Then, he instinctively looked back, for he had caught glimpse of a crowd on the mirror. But there was no one behind him. He glanced at the mirror again. Upon closer inspection, he felt both a sort of warm and sadness in his chest.

"Mom?" he cried out weakly. "Dad?"

The figures in the mirror waved at him. His mother, smiling, put her hand on his shoulder, but he felt nothing. Then, he felt it. Sherlock's hand was on his shoulder, bringing him back to reality, for which he felt both annoyed and thankful.

"It's just an image Harry," he said.

"I know it is. But... ."

"I know," said Sherlock. There was no need for words.

"Your turn," said Harry, stepping outside the way so that Sherlock could glance at it.

Harry didn't look at the mirror. He looked at Sherlock, whose face showed nothing less than absolute shock at what he had seen. Harry didn't know what he saw, but it caused Sherlock to stumble backwards and fall. He put his arm before his face as if trying to put some distance between him and an invisible enemy, gasping for breath. Harry had never seen Sherlock as horrified as he was at that very moment.

"Sherlock! Are...are you alright?"

"Yes. _Yes,_" he repeated, more to himself than to Harry. "I'm alright. Let's leave. I'm afraid I made a bit more noise than I should have."

But despite Sherlock's suggestion that they should leave, he didn't make any motion to get up, nor did Harry attempt to hurry him. Harry did not know for how long they stood there, in silence, as Sherlock tried to recover from the shock he went through.

"You want to stay and look at the mirror some more, don't you?"

"I can come back tomorrow," said Harry. "Right now you just need to get some sleep."

"Yes, well, I can find my way back to the tower. I don't need the cloak to avoid getting caught by Filtch of all people." Sherlock tried to laugh off the notion that Filtch could catch him, but Harry noticed he still hadn't quite recovered. "I'm fine Harry. We'll talk tomorrow."

Harry wasn't too happy with letting him go like that, but he knew that Sherlock needed to be alone for a while. After he had left, Harry hesitantly looked at the mirror once more. It was hypnotizing.

"Wise decision, Harry. I believe Mr. Holmes needs to be alone for a while."

Harry turned around, and was surprised to see Albus Dumbledore standing behind him. He didn't know what to say, but upon seeing the smile on the headmaster's face, he relaxed slightly.

"Mr. Holmes is quite clever," said Dumbledore, inspecting the mirror as if he had just met an old friend. "The Mirror of Erised shows you nothing more and nothing less than your heart's deepest desire. You, who never met your parents, see your family reunited with you. Mr. Holmes... ."Dumbledore shook his head. "I'm afraid I do not know what he saw."

"If, well, if the mirror shows what we desire the most, why did it scare him like that? Shouldn't he be...happy? I know I am," he said, glancing at the mirror once more.

"Ah, Harry! The heart is one curious thing. It and the brain aren't always connected as they should be, which produces some funny results. Which, I may add, is the reason I don't think you should come see the mirror much more. Sometimes, we desire things we aren't even sure of ourselves. I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Holmes desired something that he rationally dislikes, but irrationally approves of. He seems quite fond of his rationality, that one. Something like that could definitely cause a reaction of that kind."

"Like what, sir?"

"Like wanting to be normal, Harry," said Dumbledore gently.

"So you think—Sherlock—"

"No, Harry. I do not think Sherlock wants to be normal. I was merely giving you an example. As you grow older, you start to witness patterns in human behaviour, and I am quite proud of my ability to understand the human mind. That is not to say that I think of myself as old," he winked jokingly at Harry. "Is there something on your mind?"

Remembering Hermione's advice, and being worried about Sherlock, Harry told Dumbledore all about the mysterious boy who had kidnapped him before. At first, Dumbledore seemed worried, but he slowly relaxed as the story went on.

"I'll see to it that the student in question doesn't kidnap anyone else, and that he is punished for his erm, kidnapping. Do you feel more secure now, Harry?"

"I'm not worried about him. I mean, if he's Sherlock's enemy, then Sherlock is his enemy, which means they are a match for each other, right? And I trust Sherlock."

"You would make your father proud with those words," said Dumbledore kindly.

"What I'm worried about is what he said about Sherlock, about how he is...insane, or something. I don't remember the exact words."

Dumbledore chuckled. "Harry, in the wizarding world, if you remain bounded by the chains of sanity, you'll never find out the wonders of magic. We live in a world where broomsticks can make you fly! Isn't that wonderful? But because of that, only a very special kind of man won't lose his mind in one way or another, so to speak. It takes a fool to remain sane in the wizarding world, and I think Mr. Holmes fancies himself rather intelligent. And so do I," Dumbledore added, smiling.

Harry chuckled as well. "Thank you, Professor Dumbledore."

It would be years before Harry fully understood the meaning of Dumbledore's words. But as he would know a few years later, he couldn't be blamed for not understanding it when he was only eleven years old.


	10. The Red Headed League

_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor do I own the BBC Sherlock series. Sherlock Holmes the character is public domain though, if I remember correctly._

* * *

><p>The day after the incident with the mirror, Harry woke up with a vague intention of making Sherlock tell him what he had seen in the reflection. This idea was quickly shut inside a corner of his head when he entered the common room to find Sherlock in deep conversation with Percy Weasley. Perceiving the seriousness of the subject, Harry was about to give them some privacy when Sherlock pulled him by the arm and forced him to sit down.<p>

"I was under the impression you two were discussing something serious," said Harry, not wanting the two to think he was avoiding them.

"We were," said Sherlock, not taking his eyes off Percy. "And that is exactly why I need you here. Percy, I assume Harry Potter has defeated one more dark lord than necessary in order to earn your trust."

"Of course," said Percy snidely, but conformed nonetheless. "I told you, Sherlock. There is nothing wrong with anything. I'm just busy studying―my O.W.L are coming, you understand."

"What I understand," said Sherlock slowly, putting his fingertips together, "is that Professor Snape told me you might need some help."

"Professor Snape?" Percy asked incredulously. Noticing how surprised he sounded and how much he failed to hide his disdain for the teacher, he calmed himself, then said, "Why am I not surprised that of all teachers in this castle, Snape is the one that you like to talk to the most?"

"He's a teacher at this school, regardless of what his reputation is. You won't try to refuse help when a _teacher _thinks you should listen to me, do you?"

Percy relapsed in his armchair, sighing heavily. The appeal to authority had worked. Harry had noticed, and Sherlock would later confirm to him, that Percy cared much more about people's rankings than about their actual selves. If a teacher had thought he needed help, then it didn't matter if that teacher was Snape.

"I'm not supposed to tell anyone," Percy said, looking down. "No one is supposed to know. That includes Professor Snape. But if he knows, and he thinks you need to know too, then... ." Percy hesitated.

"Percy, trust me. I won't snoop around, I just want to help," said Sherlock so kindly Harry almost believed him. Then, with a glitter in his eyes, he emphasized his intentions, "With your _peculiar _problem."

The Weasley pulled out an unclean and wrinkled piece of parchment out of his pocket, handing it over to Sherlock, who immediately flipped it over to look for any unusual characteristics or markings, before directing his attention to its actual contents. Harry, who was sitting beside him, leaned over to read it.

_Dear Mr. Weasley,_

_ It pleases me to say that you qualify for the red-headed scholarship. An exceptional Gryffindor by the name of Ezekiah Hopkins, who took very much pride in his hair colour, made it so that his will provided equally exceptional students with equally scarlet hair ample opportunity to make connections with the ministry and receive galleons for __their__ effort. This program must be kept secret from all others, staff or student, with the exception of the staff member assigned to guide you. This scholarship must remain secret to all, students__ and staff__. Please, meet the staff member at midnight by the trophy room in order to receive further instruction and explanations for your numerous questions. _

_ Yours sincerely, _

_ Your future instructor,_

_ Representative of The Red Headed League._

Sherlock finished reading first, but he kept staring at the paper until Harry had the chance to finish as well. The two exchanged a worried look, then, the sheer ridiculousness of it overtaking all their puzzlement, their worried look soon gave way to uncontrolled and unrestrained laughter.

"If you aren't going to take this seriously," said Percy dryly, "then I'm going to leave."

"My dear Percy, I have never liked you more than right now," said Sherlock earnestly. "Please, continue with your story. Did you meet with this...representative?"

Harry suppressed the urge to burst out in laughter once more by pretending to cough. Percy sank back into his armchair, let his forehead rest on his left hand and prepared to continue the story.

"I did. At first, I wasn't sure whether I should go or not as I had to do something else a bit later that night as a prefect and my duties take first priority to anything. But then I decided it was my duty to investigate this prank, if it was one. And if it wasn't, well," Percy stopped himself, shrugging uncomfortably. "If it wasn't one, then there was no reason I shouldn't take advantage of it. I'm proud of my hair and my abilities. Once I got there, I realized the scholarship was very much real.

"The instructor went on to clarify what my duties would be and why I qualified for the scholarship. The man who created the scholarship was proud of his red hair, and wanted to help wizards with hair and minds as bright as his. I would need to, every night, for thirty minutes, copy down a few books from his subject, pick up one galleon he would leave in the classroom waiting for me, then do the same the next night. To keep the secrecy of the scholarship, which was necessary as it was explicitly stated in the will of the Gryffindor who created it, I was told not to talk to this person in public regarding the scholarship. I fulfilled all my duties happily, gaining an extra galleon and knowing next year I would be introduced to members from the Ministry of Magic, which would be great for my career.

"But recently, I received a letter from my instructor informing me I would need to work overtime soon. This worries me because I am in charge of a very special duty right after I get done with the red-headed scholarship work, which I can't put off. My instructor told me, many times, that he had talked with the necessary people about my prefect work and that there was no need to worry, but the fact he told me I can't confirm that with the people that put me in charge is...unsettling."

"I see," said Sherlock at last, his eyes beaming with happiness. "This is very interesting and I can see why Professor Snape thought I could be of help. Rest assured, Percy. Please tell me once you get told to work overtime, and I will let you know whether things will be okay or not. Don't worry, I'm pretty sure of what's happening and it will not damage your career in any way. I don't suppose I could get you to just tell me the name of your instructor?"

"Of course not!"

"Well, I expected as much. It's not like there are any "red-headed" teachers in Hogwarts in any case. Ah well, it's what I expected to hear. Thank you for your time Percy."

Once Percy had left the room, there was nothing to stop Harry from asking about what Sherlock had seen in the mirror. Nothing except the feeling that the question either wouldn't be received kindly or wouldn't be received at all, considering how Sherlock seemed to have lost all connection to the world of living―a state that continued for a few more days, with him sometimes refusing to eat dinner, claiming the mind worked better in an empty stomach.

The day before Hermione came back, Sherlock had a sudden burst of energy, jumping out of the chair he spent most of the Christmas break in, a maniacal grin Harry had grown used to seeing indicating it was time for adventure. "Harry, grab your invisibility cloak. It's time."

Sherlock had used Harry's invisibility cloak a few times before, muttering something about needing to copy the list of ingredients for a complicated polyjuice potion(or something to that effect) and handing the list to the Weasley twins in the morning. He never told Harry about what he was doing, something Harry was very much grateful for, as he liked sleeping soundly at night. For him to actually invite Harry to come along this time, it meant the adventure that was soon to follow was either not dangerous or so dangerous he felt Harry couldn't miss it.

To Harry's surprise, the adventure consisted of going to Percy's room when nobody was in the dormitory.

"This was harder than it should have been," Sherlock muttered, unlocking the door with his wand. "But I had to confirm no one else was here and it would be suspicious if I asked―"

"What are we doing here?" asked Harry, somewhat angrily. "I really wouldn't mind if you started telling me what you are thinking."

"In a minute," he answered impatiently.

Their search of Percy's bed only wielded minimal results, or so Harry thought. For the longest time, it seemed like they wouldn't find anything useful, but Sherlock was so hellbent on finding something that it seemed as though reality changed itself to please him(a thought that seemed vaguely possible considering they were in Hogwarts) allowing him to find a letter Harry was sure wasn't there a second ago.

_Dear Mr. Weasley,_

_Please use the flute attached to this letter in order to send away your fear in case you feel the sounds from beyond the door are getting the best of you. Due to security measures, I would appreciate if you did not speak to me in person about this letter. Thank you for your service to Hogwarts,_

_ Yours Sincerely, _

_ Albus Dumbledore,_

_ Headmaster of Hogwarts._

Sherlock screamed so suddenly Harry had to jump back, taking off the invisibility cloak, to keep himself from falling. It was an odd sight to behold. Sherlock's eyes were wide open, like he had just seen a ghost and really wanted to see it again. Sweat dripped from his forehead. His breath was heavy and loud. His mouth moved at an impressive speed, but no sounds came out of it. It wasn't that he was trying to hide anything from Harry this time. His brain was simply working so fast his mouth couldn't keep up with it.

It was only through much effort that Harry managed to convince Sherlock to leave the dormitory and go back to the common room. Try as he might, he couldn't get him to say much that made sense that day. He could barely elicit a response from him. It was like his mind was somewhere else.

The next day, when Hermione arrived, Harry quickly explained everything that had happened in the hopes she would be able to get through Sherlock so they could understand what was going on with the school and with him. She betrayed his expectations slightly by showing she was more concerned than curious about the situation.

"It's not that I don't think it's important for us to know who wants the stone," she admitted, against her will. "But aren't you worried about Sherlock? From what you have told me, it seems like ever since he looked at that mirror he hasn't been himself. Is he alright? This guy who kidnapped you, whoever wants to steal the stone, the mirror...I wonder if it's getting to him."

Harry bit his lip, cursing himself for forgetting about that. He had been really worried about Sherlock's health, but somehow the euphoria of being so close to cracking the case had gotten the best of him and he completely forgot all about it. He felt disgusted at himself for forgetting about his friend, but at the same time, he couldn't quite blame himself for it.

"I know," said Hermione, as if reading his mind. "He ignores himself so often sometimes it's hard to remember that he is―well―human. But he is, whether he likes it or not, and whether he ignores it or not."

Once the term had started, it became even harder to pay attention to Sherlock, as Oliver Wood had began a new, more rigorous training schedule. While Harry didn't particularly care about passing Slytherin in the house championship(which Gryffindor would if they won their next match) he did very much care about winning. Ever since his last match, he felt his desire for winning get stronger and stronger. He, much like Wood, wanted to win for the sake of winning. It had nothing to do with points. Somewhat ashamedly, he wondered if his parents would disapprove of this line of thinking.

The Weasley twins complained lightly enough of the new practice regime that Harry remembered that Sherlock had given them a list of ingredients for something. Whatever it was, it must have been interesting enough to keep them from being too unhappy at pretty much anything. Anything but the fact that Snape was going to be refereeing their next game, that is.

"Does he even know the rules to Quiddich?" asked George, throwing his arms high up in the air. "I mean, there's more than the basic rules. There are so many fouls, there's no way he knows them all."

"But he likely knows how to use the word "foul" in a vague enough way to keep us from winning," said Fred wisely.

After practice, Harry returned to the common room to find Sherlock and Hermione playing chess, looking both perfectly happy. Another reason why making sure Sherlock was fine was difficult was precisely that. He was extremely skillful at pretending not to feel anything.

"Tell me what you saw in the mirror," said Hermione, obviously annoyed at him.

"Of course," he responded, smirking. "If you can beat me, that is." Sherlock moved his bishop, widening his smirk. "Checkmate."

Sherlock turned his neck around to Harry slowly, still displaying a happy smile, clapped his hands together and said, "You did play a good game though, so I think I'm going to let you know why I don't think Snape is the culprit. The way things are, I think it's better if you know at least part of what I do."

Harry noticed that Sherlock made clear he wouldn't reveal everything he knew, but he was far too curious to raise an objection. Hermione must have felt the same, because she didn't say anything either, encouraging him to continue talking.

"There is no new information for me to tell you," he began. "You saw what I saw. So all I can do is share my conclusions. That the three-headed dog is guarding something goes without saying, and Harry already made the connection between it and what Hagrid took out of Gringotts before the term started. After some light interrogation, we found out that the item was related to a man named Nicolas Flamel. My brother was useful in telling me who he was, which saved me some research.

"Trolls are too dumb to enter the castle by themselves, which means someone tried to let one in as a distraction in order to steal the stone. Snape was clever enough to see through the ruse and come protect it. You remember how that went."

"Right," said Hermione, trembling slightly as she spoke. Harry wondered if she was recalling Sherlock's vivid description of his shattered bones.

"Not only that, but Snape, however terrible to students he might be, is an incredibly intelligent man. I'm sure if he was working for Voldemort and his plan included killing Harry, trying to do so where his long list of weaknesses would include any human being with a pair of functional eyes and a binocular seems fairly...dumb."

Harry remembered Sherlock making the same argument to Snape a few weeks before.

"Is that all?" said Harry. It occurred to him that taunting Sherlock was the best way of getting information out of him. "I thought you knew more than that."

"Me too," said Hermione, catching on.

"Of course I know more," said Sherlock. He obviously knew what they were doing, but he was still too prideful to let it go. "If Snape wanted to save Harry, he could just give the student who jinxed Harry's broom a detention to prevent him from having a chance to come to the game in the first place, since it was a perfect opportunity to kill him. Therefore, it follows that the person who jinxed Harry's broom was not a student."

"Are you suggesting a teacher did it?" cried Hermione, like she couldn't believe what he was saying.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "You seemed fine with the idea that Snape had done it."

"Well, but that's _Snape."_

"You really shouldn't judge a person's morality by his personality," said Sherlock thoughtfully. "The only reason you don't like him is that he doesn't praise you when you answer his questions."

"That's not true!" she answered indignantly. "I don't like Snape because of the way he treats Harry. Don't tell me you haven't noticed how unfair he is to him. Not to mention how he takes off points from Gryffindor all the time for the most unfair reasons."

Harry nodded. Snape really did seem to hate him, even more so than he seemed to hate other human beings in general.

"His hatred for Harry is interesting," said Sherlock, putting his fingertips together. "Because his actions clash against each other. He hates him, but then saves his life? It doesn't make any sense. It's strange, it's interesting, it's _wonderful."_

"Stop that," said Hermione.

Sherlock looked at his hands instinctively, as if trying to find the action Hermione was disapproving of but utterly failing at doing so. Then, shrugging, he admitted his ignorance.

"Stop treating dangerous things as interesting. It's going to get you killed one day."

"If I did that, then we wouldn't be friends."

Harry expected Hermione to object to being dangerous, but instead, she looked surprised and said, "You think I'm interesting?"

"Yes," said Sherlock honestly.

Harry decided it was for the best not to try to understand that conversation, shook his head to show he had given up understanding it, and went back to the main topic.

"What else do you know about the stone and the guy trying to steal it?"

"Harry, aside from that, I don't _know _anything. I have theories, yes, but yours are just as good as mine. We know it must be a teacher because Snape is not an idiot, the question remains what teacher it is."

"What teacher is trying to steal the stone," said Hermione in a low voice.

"What teacher is trying to resurrect Voldemort," said Harry in an even lower voice.

He imagined Voldemort coming back to power, killing the parents he had seen in the mirror, cackling, a flash of green light hiding his face. Hagrid had told him all he knew about Voldemort, which wasn't much, but it was still enough to give him a vague idea of how dark those times were. He of all people should know. He lost his parents because of that man.

That night, Harry woke up, sweat covering his face. He suspected he would have many nightmares about this until it was over. The dormitory looked different. There was no way he could have known this, since it was too dark to see anything. But he felt it. He knew that there was something off about it. When his eyes got used to the dark, he glanced at Sherlock's bed and saw that it was empty.

Still half-asleep, but with a vague idea of what he needed to do, Harry drew his invisibility cloak and stumbled toward the common room. Unexpectedly, he didn't need to go very far to find Sherlock. In fact, he didn't even need to leave the tower at all. Sherlock was leaning against a wall, eyes closed and violin in hand, carelessly fiddling its strings, hitting chord after chord without any recognizable pattern. The melody, though completely chaotic, seemed to follow such precise playing that it seemed as though it had been―but it couldn't have been―rehearsed beforehand.

To further Harry's surprise, Hermione came walking down the stairs that led to the girls dormitory, wearing a bathrobe and a sad smile on her face. She sat against the wall, right beside Sherlock, without saying a word. Then, with a kind voice, "Have you gotten any sleep at all since looking at the mirror?"

Sherlock didn't respond, but he stopped playing the violin. This could either mean he was interested in talking to her or annoyed she had interrupted his violin playing.

"I tried to imagine what on earth could have scared you of all people that much," she said. Her tone was the same Harry would have imagined she would have used to talk about the future. "But I couldn't think of anything that would have scared you that much, especially not if that was the thing you desired the most. Then I thought about what I would have seen if I looked at the mirror." She hesitated for a second. "I would probably...have seen myself the same way I am now."

Sherlock looked up, interested.

"Before I came to Hogwarts, I never thought I would fit in anywhere," she said. Harry couldn't see her face from where he was standing, afraid that though invisible, they would notice his footsteps if he came closer, but he thought she must have blushed slightly as she said that. "I always liked studying, you know. No one was quite like me and my "unusually large teeth" like you said a few days ago."

Harry thought he heard Sherlock mutter "Sorry," but there was a fairly high chance he mistook a grumble for it.

"Then you and Harry came along. I think there isn't anything else I would like more than that." She stopped for a second. "That's what I would have seen, I think. It wouldn't have been easy to admit that to myself. It took me a lot of thinking to admit that I just didn't want to be alone. That's why I didn't sleep yet. What did you see, Sherlock?"

Sherlock didn't look her in the eye. He kept staring off at the distance, and Harry froze in place, afraid of the irrational thought that Sherlock could somehow see through invisibility cloaks.

"I see someone," he muttered. "I don't know who he is. I have never seen him before."

"Your father?"

"No," he said dryly. " He isn't much older than me. A few years at the most. That's what bothers me. Harry sees his parents, you see friendship, and I see... ." Sherlock trailed off, seeming repulsed at what he thought. "I don't really have a problem with not being normal, you know."

"I know," she answered, laughing.

"Even though I don't have a problem with being different, there's still a difference between just ignoring social norms and...and knowing that deep down, I really don't care about those norms." He stopped for a second. "To see _that _instead of my dead parents...it isn't right."

Hermione studied Sherlock, then, smiling, "There is no right or wrong answer to what you want the most. Maybe you just accepted your parents' death because you had a good family raising you, one that...didn't treat you badly. So you just wished for something else."

"If you ask me exactly what I saw, I don't think I could lie to you after you told me what you would have seen," he said, somewhat sarcastically. "That was a bit of a cruel move. Not even _I_ can just say no to you after you went ahead and told me all of that."

"I know. That's why I won't ask you." Sherlock blinked. "I'm not curious about what you saw. Well, maybe a little," she admitted. "But most of all I want you not to...go crazy over what you saw in the mirror. Just tell me when you feel like it. Are we on the same page on that?"

"No," he answered immediately.

"Same book?"

He gave it a thought. "Maybe."

She jumped to her feet and walked back to her dormitory without saying another word. When she had disappeared from sight, Sherlock returned to playing with his violin, but this time Harry noticed the melody was just a bit happier than before.

* * *

><p>The Quiddich match drew nearer, and Snape drew even nearer. It seemed like he was determined not to let Harry out of his sight, which, if Sherlock's theory was correct, meant he wanted to protect him. Not that you would be able to gather that from his usual behaviour. He was still ruthless and punished Harry for anything he did or was conceivably partially responsible for.<p>

Many students seemed to regard his upcoming match with Hufflepuff to be the day of his funeral, but not Hermione and Sherlock. Even Harry was relatively calm about the match. Sherlock's logic was concise, even if it was hard to shake off the feeling that Snape simply loathed him.

"Don't worry, I talked with Snape during my detention yesterday," said Sherlock. "He told me he'll make sure you don't get hurt. Well, not with those words," he added. "But that was his general intention, even if he tried to keep it hidden."

"How many detentions do you even have?" asked Harry. "You make it sound like you have a detention with Snape every day."

"I do actually," he answered nonchalantly. "Every day, for the next two weeks. Not to worry, I learn a lot during those detentions. Snape is a good teacher."

"Even if he is a horrible person," grunted Harry.

"I don't think I want to know what you are learning there," said Hermione, rolling her eyes.

"You don't," confirmed Sherlock.

Oliver Wood's pep talk was inspirational. He talked about splitting the sky open, showing them what Gryffindor was all about, putting to use all their harsh training, passing Slytherin, and becoming legends. Most of the team, used to his pep talks, barely paid attention to it, but Harry was hanging on to every word he said, which made Wood even more excited about the game.

"Harry, with Snape refereeing we can't afford to have a long game. Think you can catch the Snitch quickly? Because if you can't, then you better start thinking you can!"

"How quickly?" asked Harry. There was no hint of nervousness in his voice. His blood was boiling with excitement, ready to go out there and catch the Snitch. Ever since the last game, he had completely forgotten all his fears related to Quiddich and losing. And winning.

"Twenty minutes?" asked Wood uncertainly, not used to having teammates as hungry for winning as him.

"I can do it in five," he answered confidently, surprising everyone but Wood. Even Harry couldn't believe what he was saying. The excitement was beginning to take over his ability to decide what to do.

"Did you hear that team?" screamed Wood. "Harry wants to win in five minutes. And so do I! So forget everything. We are going with an all out blitz. Even if we take a few goals in the beginning, it won't matter, because Harry will catch the Snitch before they can reach thirty points. Get it? Everyone, provide cover for Harry. Nothing else matters! All out blitz!"

"That's a risky strategy," said George, smirking.

"You better not disappoint us, Harry! Dumbledore came down to watch the game, make him proud!"

Harry began to regret his little act of bravado, but there was no turning back now. He had to win the game within five minutes.

Sherlock noticed Dumbledore's presence in the stands before nearly anyone else did, something he was quick to point out to Hermione.

"I don't know how you found him so fast," she admitted. "If only you used that attention span to study."

"I do, it's just that I only study what interests me."

They had been far less hostile to each other lately, though they still insulted each other out of habit.

"Holmes," said a cold, familiar voice from behind.

The two turned around to find Draco Malfoy standing smugly behind them. He seemed to have a lot of bottled up frustration ready to release on them.

"Jeffrey," said Sherlock, causing Draco to look at him in confusion. "Oh, I'm sorry. Hope? Morgan? Malfoy? Malfoy! My bad, but you can't expect me to remember the name of every scumbag that crosses my path."

Before Malfoy could reply, Hermione grabbed Sherlock by the arm and jumped up in excitement. "Sherlock! Look!"

The game had started, and Slytherin had scored. The entire Gryffindor team had ignored their positions and focused on facilitating Harry's search for the Snitch. This risky gamble seemed to have worked, because Harry had dived out of nowhere toward a golden flash in the middle of the air. There was barely any time to react, until Harry punched the air proudly, the golden Snitch in his hand.

The game was over, and forget five minutes, it had taken Harry just over a minute to catch the Snitch. Wood's blitz had worked. Harry caught glimpse of an angry Professor Snape spitting at the ground and walking off the grounds with a very nervous Professor Quirrel. Harry wanted to follow them, but he didn't. He felt too happy to think.

Flying high up in the air in response to a mountain of cheers from the stands, he did something that he knew Hermione would yell at him for later―he did a handstand on his broom while still on the air, right before he landed. This caused the crowd to erupt into more cheers. To his surprise, Professor Dumbledore came to congratulate him for his win.

"Well done Harry," he said, winking at him. "You are looking a lot like your father."

"Thank you―is that a compliment?"

"It's a fact," Dumbledore said kindly.

At that moment, he was pulled to the side by an invisible hand he knew belonged to Sherlock. Minutes later, he, Hermione and Sherlock were walking towards the school grounds to visit Hagrid, the two also congratulating him for his performance.

"That was brilliant!" said Sherlock. From him, it was a great compliment.

"That was amazing!" said Hermione. "But don't do that again," she added, referring to the handstand.

"Sorry," he said. "I just, I couldn't think straight. It all just sort of...seemed like a good idea at the time."

They laughed.

"I saw Snape and Quirrel leaving the school grounds together," he noted, remembering that fact.

Sherlock looked up instantly. "Forget what I said about your playing being brilliant. Now _that_ was brilliant."

Neither of them asked him what he meant, but they both had an idea of what he was thinking. Was Quirrel the culprit?

"Let's walk faster," said Sherlock, grinning. "I can't _wait_ until we talk to Hagrid."

* * *

><p><strong><em><span>Author's note: <span>_**

**_Sorry for the delay in this chapter. The December rush got to me. I actually managed to write out a full chapter in time for the usual update, but...it...kind of sucked. I didn't like the end result at all, so it was with a lot of regret that I threw out around 5000 words to rewrite this chapter. Once I finish book 1, I'll include a chapter with all "deleted scenes" to show you guys the amount of things I wrote and tossed it away. It's..pretty long, haha. _**

**_Oh and in relation to this chapter, I think I'm developing Harry to be a bit more like his father as opposed to his mother, because here he has...Sherlock, while in the books he had Ron. It just seems like the logical step to take, but I won't go overboard with it. _**

**_Many of you had a ton of theories about who the kidnapper was last chapter, and as much as I want to answer them, I can't say "yes" or "no" without giving a huge hint to the actual answer. So just bear with me, this will be revealed soon. _**

**_Thank you all for your reviews and for reading!_**


	11. Is it nice not being me?

Disclaimer: I do not own either series referenced here.

* * *

><p>"Walk faster!" Sherlock screamed at the two, as they walked to Hagrid's hut. He seemed so excited he could hardly keep himself from jumping. "It's so close!"<p>

"What's close?" asked Harry, confused. "Hagrid's hut?"

"It's so close I can feel it, I can almost touch it with my fingers now," said Sherlock, ignoring Harry's question. "C'mon, hurry!"

Sherlock's maniacal energy must have disappeared a moment before they entered Hagrid's hut, because Sherlock looked as calm as he had ever been when Hagrid served them tea. Hermione raised an eyebrow at this sudden change, but didn't say anything.

"Did you see Harry's match, Hagrid?" asked Sherlock, in a shifty tone that quickly alerted Harry and Hermione about his plans but that went unnoticed by Hagrid.

"Aye," he said, grinning with an unmistakable bit of pride. "Breathtakin', really. Harry, yer an amazin' Seeker."

"I would be a better Seeker than him," said Sherlock. This uncharacteristic boast caught the attention of the group, but was cleared up less than a second later. "If I wasn't still injured, that is."

He wasn't injured anymore, but Hagrid did not know that.

"You wouldn't be injured if you weren't so reckless," snapped Hermione, but Harry noticed an unmistakable degree of phoniness in her voice. He had seen her get angry at Sherlock so often he knew she wasn't actually angry this time, and took this as a hint for him to act as well.

"Maybe if you weren't hurt by that three-headed dog, you could have been playing with me in that match."

"Yer shouldn't have gotten hurt," said Hagrid, in a quiet, low voice that didn't quite suit him. "Fluffy―he is a good dog, you know."

"I know," agreed Sherlock, prompting Hermione to shoot him a surprised look. "I don't really resent the dog―erm, _Fluffy_ for it. I think he is a fascinating creature and I would love to know more about him. Well, me and the rest of the school."

"Ain't that right," laughed Hagrid, letting himself relax. "Ever since the incident with you and Fluffy, people have been comin' 'round here to ask me about Fluffy. I have no idea how they knew I was related to him, or even that he existed, but rumors have been crazy since..."

Hagrid trailed off, and none of them made an effort to respond to his reticence. It was a well-known fact that Hagrid had a taste for magical creatures, which meant finding out who knew the most about Fluffy was but a coin toss between him and the magical creatures teacher. The brief moment of silence gave Harry a moment to consider one oddity about the situation. How had the truth behind Sherlock's incident spread out so quickly? Wouldn't the teachers try to keep it a secret?

"Was any of those people a teacher?" asked Hermione, making Sherlock grin at her in approval.

"A teacher?" Hagrid paused for a second. "No, no teachers. No one seemed to be really interested in him for more than a few weeks, save for that Ravenclaw kid."

Sherlock seemed unconcerned by that fact, but Harry nearly jumped out of his chair.

"Ravenclaw? What did he look like?" he asked excitedly.

"I could describe him to yer, but he's coming here for tea in a few hours. If yer so interested in him, you can just wait for a bit."

"Harry, you don't think―" began Hermione, before Sherlock's annoyed voice interrupted her.

"We are going to have a very busy few days, so I'm going to save us some time. No, Harry. Whoever this person is, he is not the one who kidnapped you. The one who kidnapped you was my―"

The door swung open at once. Though opening a door without knocking was rude, there was no way Harry could attribute such quality to the person standing before them. The boy must have been a second or third year student, and wore robes that indicated he belonged to Ravenclaw. He sported a kind, somewhat studious smile, and by all accounts looked like a nice, if somewhat shy person.

Yet Sherlock was glaring at him.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude," said the student.

"Don't worry, we were just leaving," said Sherlock, jumping out of his chair without breaking off his glare.

"This is the student I was telling you about," said Hagrid. "He's―"

"James," said the boy. "You don't have to call me that, though."

They exchanged polite greetings for a bit longer, and when they bid Hagrid and James goodbye, the group remained in silence for what seemed to be an eternity before Harry chose to speak up.

"Have we met James before? I get the feeling that we did..."

"We bumped into him once," said Sherlock, without looking at Harry as he spoke. He walked slightly, but constantly ahead of the other two and made conscious effort to avoid eye contact. "It doesn't surprise me that you don't remember him."

Even if it didn't surprise Sherlock, it did surprise Harry that Sherlock remembered him. He had often told Harry he did his best to forget any useless information he learned by accident. This raised an important question that, for reasons he himself did not understand, sent a chill down his spine.

Why did Sherlock remember him? Why did he seem so confused, so lost in thought?

Hermione seemed to read his thoughts, because she walked up to him and whispered, "Don't worry, Sherlock is going to be fine."

But that night, she started to doubt her own words. Harry and Hermione were studying for the exams, but Sherlock refused to join them. Instead, he seemed to prefer to sit on the floor, in one of the corners of the common room, doing absolutely nothing. This evidently worried Hermione, because she offered Harry to take a break from studying.

"I think I'm more worried about you than about Sherlock," said Harry, astounded.

"The exams are still over two months away," she snapped at him defensively. "And we can't study if our mind is on something else."

Harry thought about pointing out she seemed fine with studying despite the possibility of the stone being stolen any minute, but he kept that comment to himself.

"Go talk to him," she said.

"Wouldn't he respond better to you?" asked Harry, somewhat flippantly. He was as worried as she was, but spending time with Sherlock was making him more prone to snide remarks.

"What do you mean by that?" returned Hermione, somewhat defensively.

Understanding he had nearly let her know he overheard their conversation the other night about the mirror, Harry knew that he must not let his newly discovered flippancy take control of him. Instead of replying, he got to his feet and directed his word at Sherlock.

"Sherlock―"

But he could not finish his question. As soon as he noticed Harry meant to talk to him, Sherlock moved away to another corner, where he presumably resumed the act of doing nothing, though it was hard to tell. Refusing to quit, Harry walked up to him once more, which this time prompted Sherlock to walk through the portrait and leave the common room, but not before sarcastically waving at Harry, as if to tell him he did not want to talk. Shrugging, Harry immediately followed after him.

"It's late," Hermione reminded him. "If you are caught―"

"We won't be," said Harry, with a confidence even he didn't quite understand. He could have taken the invisibility cloak with him, but he didn't, a fact Sherlock wasted no time in bringing up once Harry had caught up with him sitting on a hidden staircase near the centre of the castle.

"It's your fault," said Harry, in a strangely conformed tone. He didn't quite understand what he meant by that, but Sherlock's silence gave him ample time to consider his own words. Before he could catch up with his own train of thought, he found himself whispering, "It's your pace."

Sherlock, who had up to that point tried to act as disinterested as possible, smirked slightly. "My...pace?"

"The way you act like even things that you should care about are somebody else's business," said Harry, gesticulating wildly. "You don't care about losing points or dying, _you just don't care _about so many things that you _should _care. And because this somehow works out fine for you, I think at some point I just realized that the only way to be your friend and not go crazy is to throw away common sense."

"Common sense is just a stupid shortcut in any case," said Sherlock. "Just a bunch of unreliable shortcutsthat get in your way. It's much more practical to just do whatever fits the situation."

Harry didn't understand what Sherlock had said, but he was pretty sure it was completely impossible. Nonetheless, he didn't disagree.

"So, you are not worried about being caught by Filch or Snape despite just being outside the Gryffindor tower for no reason?"

"I guess not," agreed Harry, smiling but not quite laughing. "Not while you are here."

"Aren't you worried about Voldemort then?"

Harry took a moment before answering this question. He thought of his nightmares. He thought of the green light, the cackling sound that split the night open, of the parents he never met. Then, just as he was about to answer, he thought of how everything had changed since Hagrid knocked on his door and told him he was a wizard and he had to rethink his answer.

"I'm scared," he admitted. "But I'm not worried. I just don't think we are going to lose. I'm not sure," he said, stumbling over his explanation. "It's just that...I can't even imagine us losing."

To Harry's surprise, Sherlock laughed. It was a loud laugh, _too _loud for people who could do without attention from teachers.

"I'm sorry Harry," Sherlock explained, "I just wasn't expecting you to phrase things that way."

"What do you mean?"

"You said that you couldn't even imagine _us _losing, instead of saying that there's no way Voldemort would take over."

"Is there a difference?"

Sherlock looked at Harry in a strangely affectionate way. Harry knew this was the look he gave to things that amused him by being slightly more complex than he had previously thought, and this made him annoyed.

"There isn't any," said Sherlock, in a low voice. "Not for people like you and me. It's the fact you know it that surprises me."

Harry didn't understand it, but Sherlock was right. Harry knew it.

"Even if Voldemort comes back, I―we'll save everyone, right?" asked Harry, in a somewhat childish tone that he couldn't quite control.

All hints of joy instantly disappeared from Sherlock's face. The cloudy night finally won over the moon, blocking most of the light coming through the window and allowing darkness to descend like a curtain.

"Harry," began Sherlock, in a serious tone, "I'm not a hero."

"What do you―"

"Ever since I remember, everything has been within my grasp. There were never any secrets I couldn't find out, nothing I couldn't get, nothing that needed me to make any kind of effort." Sherlock stretched his hand forward toward the window, slowly rubbing his hand against the wind, his fingertips tracing the edges of the now invisible moon. "Harry, why do you get up every day?"

"Why? Because...I got so many things to do, I guess," said Harry, hoping his answer made sense.

"Exactly!" exclaimed Sherlock. "You have things to do. I don't. I never did. Everything I do, everything I obsess over, it's done to distract me from the fact that if I stand still for even a single moment I'll understand everything_,_" Sherlock said, emphasizing his choice of words by throwing his arms up in the air, "to the point where there ceases to be a point in even paying attention to life itself, because I know what's going to happen. And when the rare times when I allow my mind to wonder come, everything just looks so pointless I don't feel like it's worth lifting a finger. Do you understand that feeling? That...crushing boredom_?"_

Harry shook his head. He wanted to say something, _anything,_ but he felt as though Sherlock's feelings were far beyond the scope of anything he could possibly imagine.

"Of course you don't," said Sherlock, laughing quietly. "I'm glad you don't, Harry. It must be so nice not to understand me." There was no sarcasm or hostility in his tone. "When I came to Hogwarts, I was hoping that maybe I would find out that life was more complex than I thought―but I was wrong. Magic did not make my life more complex, it made it easier. The teachers know more than I do, but only because they lived longer. I have never for a single moment felt like there was someone I couldn't surpass or something I couldn't accomplish."

Harry thought of the way he seemed to regard McGonagall and Dumbledore with a certain amount of respect, but he did not bring that up. He knew that if he were to speak then, he would never hear anything about Sherlock ever again.

"Then this whole thing with the three-headed dog and the stone happened. For the first time in my life, I saw a genuine challenge―an _adventure. _I realized, the moment I stared down that monstrosity of a dog, that I was born for things like this. I wasn't afraid, Harry. I was happy. I planned for him to gravely injure me so that Dumbledore would get somebody to guard that corridor. It all seems so insane...but it worked just the way I wanted it, and not once did I ever think of backing out. Do you understand, Harry?"

"I―I don't know." It was the most honest response he could muster up.

"I don't care in the slightest about people or saving them. The only reason I'm doing all of this is because those problems interest me. My sense of justice is secondary to just _not being bored." _He sighed heavily. "I don't think heroes exist, Harry, and I know for a fact I'm not one."

They remained in silence for a long time. After what could have been either a few minutes or a few hours, Sherlock began to walk back to the tower by himself, but Harry's voice caught him midway through.

"I don't understand even half of the things you just said," said Harry. "But you are wrong."

"That's not a very frequent occurrence," said Sherlock, raising an eyebrow. "Are you sure of that?"

"You care about people," said Harry, his mind flashing back to the time he saved Neville. "You just don't...understand that you do."

Sherlock seemed amused.

"What evidence do you have to prove your theory?" he asked, laughing as he did so.

"It's just not possible," Harry shouted. "IT'S JUST NOT POSSIBLE NOT TO CARE ABOUT PEOPLE'S LIVES!"

"I told you Harry, heroes don't exist and―" Sherlock stopped himself, as if realizing something mid-sentence. Then, adopting a much more relaxed smile, "Harry, I was wrong."

Harry couldn't believe what he was hearing. It was even rarer than hearing Hermione admit she was wrong.

"You were wrong? You?"

"Yes. Heroes exist. I still say I'm not one of them, though."

"Then who―"

Without saying another word, Sherlock slapped Harry's back much the same way his Quiddich partners did to let them know it was his turn. Then, for the first time since he arrived on Hogwarts, more than when he was sorted into Gryffindor, more than when he won Quiddich matches, he finally felt like he belonged in that world―like he was an equal to everyone.

"As Hagrid would say, yer a hero Harry."

"I'm not―"

"You are! Just think back of all the times you played Quiddich. So long as you are holding a broom, you are invincible, are you not?"

"I―I guess," said Harry, unsure of that himself, but thinking that if Sherlock said it, it must be true.

"You have your heart in the right place, Harry. You somehow defeated Voldemort when you were just a year old. I'm still not fully convinced that heroes exist, Harry, but if they do, you are one." Sherlock laughed upon saying that. "I'm not a hero, nor do I wish to become one. Sounds too troublesome, what with all those feelings and all. But do you want to make a deal?"

"A deal?"

"I'll find the truth behind every scheme, no matter how well hidden it might be. In return, once I expose the truth behind the curtain, it will be your duty to deal with it. What do you say?"

There was something distinctively childish about Sherlock's proposal, that only a―however eccentric―twelve year old could say. Sherlock's mind was, to Harry, like a runaway train on a broken track, always burning down fuel but with no destination in mind, just burning and burning until it died. It was completely and utterly incomprehensible for Harry.

Sherlock's emotions, however, at their very core, were not that much different from Harry's, even if the young genius attempted to suppress them. He still felt, much like Harry felt, the same things, even if he dealt with them in a different way. Perhaps one day he would become better at locking away those emotions. But then, if such a day came, Harry would also grow better at reading him.

"I don't know if heroes exist either," said Harry, reluctantly. He was painfully aware of how strange the conversation sounded, but the way Sherlock took it so seriously prevented him from just laughing the stress away. "But if it will get you to stop thinking those stupid things, I'll become one. And in return, you have to be a―you have to be a detective."

"A detective?"

"It's a Muggle term. Someone who investigates things."

Sherlock's smile widened. "Very well, Harry. You'll be a hero who will never back down, and I'll be a detective who never fails to solve anything. Do we have a deal?"

"We have a promise," said Harry firmly.

At that moment, Sherlock's expression changed as if he had just realized something. Harry, recognizing his expression, didn't hesitate to ask, "What happened?"

"As much as I'm touched by your trust in my omnipotence, I never had any plans to avoid getting caught by teachers. I just didn't care if they caught me or not."

"What's the problem?"

"We have been talking loudly for about thirty minutes. Don't you wonder why no teachers have found us yet? They should have found us by now. Unless..."

"Unless there is something else getting their attention," finished Harry, realizing something very wrong was going on.

* * *

><p>It had been almost ten minutes since her friends had exited through the portrait on the wall, but Hermione wasn't concerned. She figured Harry would talk Sherlock out of whatever he was feeling, and nothing bad would happen. Well, maybe they would lose a few points for Gryffindor, but then Sherlock would gain them back the next day by doing something outrageous.<p>

She shook her head and reprehended herself for accepting that line of thinking. It was _not _alright to lose points even if you would gain them back the very next day. Hermione couldn't let that kind of thinking become a habit.

With a sudden burst of energy, she violently tossed her book onto the table, making Neville, who had fallen asleep studying beside her, nearly fall out of his chair. Hermione did not apologize for this, though she meant to―she just couldn't quite get herself to focus. But in five minutes, she had forgotten all about both the stone and her friends, and focused on her Potions homework.

Ten minutes passed, and she showed no sign of breaking her concentration. Ten more minutes passed, and her concentration waved slightly just before being shattered by Professor McGonagall storming into the tower, sweat dripping from her stern expression and wand in hand.

"Professor―what―"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you at the moment," said McGonagall, gritting her teeth, then turning to the entire Gryffindor common room. "Prefects, do not let absolutely anybody leave the tower under any circumstances!"

The common room was soon filled with many sleepy, confused students, some wearing bathrobes, and some of the more relaxed ones wearing their usual sleepwear. Whispers took over the common room, but Hermione heard none of it. She bit her fingers as she realized the very real possibility of what had happened.

She must have looked worried, because Neville came up to her to ask as much.

"Are you okay?" he asked clumsily.

"I'm fine," she said, her mind rushing through the possibilities. Could it really―?

"I hope Sherlock and Harry know about this," said Neville, noting how McGonagall frantically instructed the prefects. "It looks serious."

Hermione laughed at this. "Are you serious? I hope they _don't. _If they know about this, there's no way they'll just come back here!_"_

Her attitude was probably perceived by Neville as strange, because instead of trying to comfort her or ask further questions, he slowly moved away from her. She sighed heavily, and muttered under her breath, "This isn't me."

It wasn't like her to laugh at the possibility of people throwing themselves at clear danger, breaking who knows how many rules in the process. She should calm herself and inform McGonagall that they were missing. Surely, that was the right thing to do.

And yet she couldn't do it.

She knew it was the right thing to do, but even so, when she found herself inside Harry and Sherlock's dorm looking for the invisibility cloak, she did not for one moment think she was doing the wrong thing either.

"They forgot their wands?" she muttered angrily. "Those two, really!"

Perhaps, one day, when she was older and wiser, she would regret not doing the right thing and telling a teacher about it. Perhaps so. But that night, Hermione couldn't bear that thought. She couldn't stand the idea, however logical it might have been, to not be beside her friends. Why?

Ah, that's right. It was because they were her friends.

* * *

><p>Harry and Sherlock stood, lazily resting their backs against opposite sides of a statue, when they caught sight of Hermione, coming out from under the invisibility cloak and running up to them.<p>

"I have to say I'm surprised. I thought you two would rush in without thinking," she said.

"We would never do that," said Sherlock, pretending to take offense to that statement. "Now that you are here, we can find out what is going on."

"What do you mean now that I'm here?"

Harry and Sherlock exchanged a few surprised glances briefly.

"We were waiting for you," said Harry.

"Didn't it occur to you I might not have wanted to get involved with this?" she asked, just as surprised as Harry.

"No," said Sherlock, without looking her in the eye. "The thought of you not coming never crossed my mind."

Hermione blushed slightly, and Harry knew then, that for Sherlock to say something like that, he knew something big was about to happen.

"Do you know what's going to happen?"

"I don't have the slightest idea," said Sherlock, in a burst of maniacal energy. "But I'll find out."

"The game is on then?" asked Harry, half-jokingly, half serious.

"The game is on," confirmed Hermione, with the same tone as Harry.

"The game is very much on," said Sherlock, with complete and utter seriousness.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

I'm very much sorry about not updating for so long. My health hasn't been optimal lately, which hasn't let me write much. Well, it has, but the quality went down to a point I felt uncomfortable posting a new chapter until I felt good enough to write something decent. I'm pretty happy about how this chapter turned out, because I managed to get the trio's character development before all hell broke loose. Whether the development was good or not is up to you guys to decide though.

I hope I succeeded in making Sherlock seem like a kid who is simply so intelligent his emotions can't keep up with. As for Harry, I'm trying to go for a route where he is the same reluctant hero he was in the books, but more confident of himself because Sherlock believes in him.

...So yes I'm basically saying Harry believes in himself because Sherlock believes in him. I know, I'm so sorry.


	12. Two Months

**Disclaimer: Sherlock, the character, is technically public domain depending on where you live and I obviously don't own Harry Potter. I'm not entirely sure why the rules require me to say this but there you go.**

* * *

><p>They didn't wait for longer than ten minutes, but it felt much longer than that. Harry understood the importance of waiting even if he didn't understand why they had to wait, but that did not make the waiting any easier.<p>

It was then that he noticed Sherlock's expression.

Studying Sherlock had become a bit of hobby of his—it had to. Sherlock wasn't the most communicative person in the world nor was he particularly easy to read. You had to be able to pick up the very subtle hints the boy gave in order to hold a pleasant conversation with him, and Harry knew he was as good as anyone could ever hope to be at doing that. He knew when Sherlock was annoyed; he knew when Sherlock was thrilled; he knew when Sherlock was bored. Harry understood nearly all of his (admittedly somewhat puzzling) expressions. This expression in particular was a bit hard to decipher, but Harry knew he could understand it if he tried a bit harder.

As far as Harry could tell, Sherlock wasn't worried. What seemed out of place was that he didn't seem be in a happy or thriller mood either, which were the only moods Harry had ever seen him in. This mood was unusual, Harry thought. It was like he was hoping, but not quite expecting for something.

"I know you don't have time to explain," said Harry, in a hoarse whisper. "But you can't expect me not to ask what's going through your mind right now."

It seemed like he did expect that, because it took Sherlock a few moments until he made a vague gesture with his right arm to acknowledge that he had heard Harry's plead. He did not respond however.

"We can still turn back. We can get a teacher or—"

"Getting a teacher would just make things worse," said Sherlock, putting his fingertips together and not meeting the eyes of either of the two. "That's what's bothering me. Voldemort's group has more options than I do. I can't come up with a plan to counter every single one of them."

"Group?" asked Harry.

Sherlock nodded impassively and began to tap his fingers against each other.

"It's not just Voldemort's servant, there's one more—but I don't even have evidence—and teachers…"

He trailed off without uncertainty, shaking his head like he truly believed he had said enough for them to understand what he meant. Harry's blank stare didn't tip him off,, but Hermione's slight nudge did the trick.

"If I'm right—"

"Don't even bother." Hermione cut him off. "We don't really have anything to go on but your guesses, so just say it already!"

"That's sort of the issue we are dealing with," said Sherlock, with a hint of impatience in his voice. "If I'm—I mean, Voldemort is going to come back to life, murder Harry, and that will amazingly enough be the smallest of our problems. Oh and—"Sherlock glanced at an imaginary watch"—this should happen within the next twenty to thirty minutes."

There was a pause, but Hermione refused to let it go on for much longer than a second or two.

"You better have a good reason for not wanting to talk to a teacher." She crossed her arms as though she were angry, but she looked like she could barely keep herself composed. "If that's really what you think then—"

"Then we don't have a choice. Hermione, do you know what teachers are? Don't answer that. They are a bunch of rules, that's what they are."

She raised an eyebrow, but didn't respond. They both knew (to a degree) that it wasn't time to argue.

"Harry, I'll let you make our choice."

Had Harry not been sitting, he would have fallen back at that moment.

"Me? I don't even know what's going on! I can't make a decision here, I don't know anything! You and Hermione are much better than me at this kind of thing."

"Yeah, we are," confirmed Sherlock, without any hint of arrogance in his tone. He leaned closer to Harry. "But you are better at defeating Voldemort, which is slightly more important at the moment."

Harry decided against questioning this point.

"What are our options?"

"If you want, we can tell all teachers about what we know—well, what I know—and focus on protecting you from Voldemort."

"Or," began Hermione, shooting Sherlock an apprehensive look, "we can stop Voldemort from being a threat to start with."

Harry looked down and then turned to face his friends with an obviously fake smile.

"You don't even have to ask—but the fact you are asking me means that there's a good chance that we might die, isn't there?"

Hermione looked away, but Sherlock maintained eye contact. If anything, Harry's question just made Sherlock's stare more intense.

Slowly, Sherlock got up and tossed a charred manuscript between Harry and Hermione. He turned his back to the two and fixated his stare on the staircases near the end of the corridor.

"What do you want to frighten me for?" asked Sherlock, seemingly referring to their surprised expressions even though he wasn't looking at them. "I suppose you imagine that I have turned to sentimentalism and wrote all about my affections for you two should something happen to me."

"To be honest, I would be surprised if that were the case," said Hermione.

"Not more surprised than I would, but do treat that manuscript as affectively as you would if they were my dying message to you—that just might turn out to be the case though, as I'm not overly optimistic about my chances."

"So if they aren't related to 'Foolish sentimentalism'," Harry couldn't resist adding a slightly mocking tone to the quoted word, "then they are related to the case?"

"You have the grand gift of common sense Harry. They are my instructions and I expect you to follow them."

"I make the decision and you make the rules?"

"That is correct, yes. Does that bother you?"

"No," said Harry honestly. "Just—promise me you'll be careful."

Sherlock responded with a sarcastic smirk, and then took off toward the staircase. Once he was sure that the boy was long gone, Harry looked at the ground,and muttered, "We are gonna see him again, right?"

Hermione didn't respond and Harry didn't press her for an answer. The two unwrapped the thick, yellowish manuscript Sherlock had given them. They were both surprised by its contents but neither of them question its validity.

Harry considered everything he had read for a second, but placed a special emphasis on Sherlock's final instructions.

_Beat Voldemort._

The handwriting was so firm and calm that for a moment-and only for that single moment-defeating Voldemort sounded both logical and easy. Even after reading the rest of Sherlock's conclusions, he didn't understand why he had to face Voldemort himself as opposed to simply calling Dumbledore. But he didn't question it, far from it. As much as he hated to admit, there was a small part of him that thought it had to be him, nobody else would do. And he knew that there was an even larger part of him that didn't quite care about why he had to be the one to face him. Regardless of the circumstances that might force him to act, it's not like he could just let Voldemort do what he wanted. He wanted to stop him.

"Harry, this is—"

"Insane? I know." Harry noticed his breath had become heavy, and so continued to talk before Hermione had a chance to point this out. "Please, don't try to stop me Hermione. I need your help. I'm…nothing special."

It was like settling an old issue. There was nothing being settled there, but simply acknowledging that fact to someone made him feel so much lighter.

Hermione's lips trembled slightly, but she did not say anything. Instead, she forced herself to smile.

"I think this is the part where I need to convince you that you are wrong…but you don't seem like you need any convincing."

"I guess not," said Harry, somewhat embarrassed. "It's not really a matter of being special or not. I just have to stop him."

"But Harry," said Hermione, unable to hide the concern in her voice, "how are you going to do that?"

"With your help," said Harry. Then, with some urgency in his voice, "Please."

Hermione's lip trembled once more, but she nodded.

* * *

><p>Fifteen minutes had passed since the young detective had left the group, but Sherlock was only aware of time in a vague, uninterested manner. Nobody would waste time searching the castle's roof. The footing was unstable and there were no escape routes or secret passages there. If you were trying to escape the school, it would be the last place you would go to.<p>

Standing on top of that diagonal rooftop gave Sherlock the uncomfortable feeling that reality itself was unbalanced. It was a cloudy, nebulous night with not a star in sight. The moon only vaguely offered a glimmer of light to the dark rooftop, flashing behind the astronomy tower and casting over the shadow of what looked like a gravestone. It was an overwhelming, creeping darkness.

Yet Sherlock did not use his wand to create any sort of light. He didn't have to.

For a very long time, a very vague silhouette stood at the other end of the rooftop, leaning against the astronomy tower, tapping his wand against the cold stone. There was no mistaking the sound; Sherlock himself had done the exact same thing in that exact same spot when trying to escape boredom. The sound grew louder and louder and the stops between each between grew shorter and shorter.

"There's no need to be impatient," cried Sherlock, with no concern for subtlety. "You've been waiting for me, haven't you?"

"Mr. Holmes!" exclaimed the silhouette. It was a familiar voice and it was very jovial. "I'm glad you decided to join me—I was beginning to think you had no idea where I was."

"I would never be so rude as to ignore your kind invitation." Sherlock's voice sounded just as pleasant as the silhouette's. "It's no use to run, by the way. Dumbledore and the other teachers have the castle surrounded. You have no chance of escaping at all."

"So it seems," acknowledged the other. There was a certain graceful concession in his tone and just the slightest hint of an Irish accent, though Sherlock couldn't quite narrow it down to one region. "I'm not a gambling man, but I'd wager you didn't stop my partner, did you?"

"There was no need to do so when I could simply send his nemesis to meet him."

"You did? That's wonderful! I was hoping you would—not expecting, you see…but I was hoping that you would. I was hoping, so very much."

Sherlock let out a bit of a quiet laugh. Whether he was amused or simply being condescending, even he did not know. He wasn't quite sure there was a difference between the two either.

"There is one thing I don't quite understand—why bring me here? You spilled parts of that potions around the staircase. It doesn't take somebody like me to figure out where you are."

This time, it was the man who laughed.

"We both know that's not quite true. Wizards are so used to using magic to solve their problems that they don't "— the man tapped the left side of his head jokingly—"even consider using their brains. They don't have an ounce of logic, you know. That's why Muggle-borns are so important. Their brains are like a blind man's ears—trained to excel, because there's no other choice. Don't you think so?"

"Spare me the lecture. Fine, let's say that nobody but me would follow you here." Sherlock threw his hands up in the air to concede the hypothetical scenario, not caring the slightest that he had to stop aiming his wand at the man to do so. "That still doesn't explain why you would bring the only person that can catch you right to where you were hiding. You can't possibly expect that killing me would be easy."

"Of course I don't." The man seemed almost surprised. "But Mr. Holmes, before we go on, I really do think I need to introduce myself. It would be rude to keep talking without letting you know who I really am."

"Oh, please, don't bother." This time it was Sherlock who sounded surprised. "I recognize your voice, James."

"You remember me? I'm honored."

"Trust me, I've done more than remembering you. I've researched you. You are a fifth year student belonging to Ravenclaw, but despite your excellent academic record you aren't a Prefect. You are an extremely talented Quiddich player, but opted not to join the House team. You avoid the spotlight at all costs because you prefer to manipulate than to act." There was a faint bit of thrill creeping behind each of Sherlock's words. He spoke in a low, soft tone that seemed closer to respect than anger—but this respect did not indicate trust. "Today being an exception, of course."

"I did my homework too, Sherlock. There is just so much about you that can only be described as fun!" the man stomped the rooftop to emphasize that last word. It seemed particularly dangerous due to the diagonal nature of their footing. "You see thrill where others see fear and you see excitement where others see disaster. There are so many things wrong with you that I can't help but admire you."

"That's a lovely, if unsettling sentiment," said Sherlock. "But much as I hate to change the subject, Harry is likely fighting Voldemort as we speak so we must hurry. What are you planning to do? Kill me?"

"That would be rather pointless, wouldn't it?" said James. "All that would accomplish is creating more evidence against me, which is not something I'm looking forward to doing. But I do think we need to settle this, so I propose we have a duel."

Sherlock glanced at his wand, and then raised an eyebrow. It's unlikely that James saw this subtle movement in the near complete darkness they were in, but he didn't need to—he understood Sherlock's objection perfectly, even if he didn't voice it, and Sherlock knew that James wouldn't make an unfair proposition like that, meaning what he actually meant was—

"I take it we aren't going to be using our wands for that duel, are we?"

"And the fact you reasoned that out shows that it will be a tough fight for me." James did a quick jump without taking his hands off from his vest's pockets. "Using violence against you would be the same as signing my death warrant. Let's face it, there's no way you can defeat a fifth year student in a duel—but you are Sherlock Holmes. I have no doubt you can raise hell before I can send you to it, which would bring all the teachers who are currently surrounding the school here in a matter of minutes and my wand would be all the evidence they would need to send me to Azkaban. But at the same time…"

"At the same time," said Sherlock, "if I can't prove your connection to Voldemort then you can just claim a bunch of excuses and avoid Azkaban, which would lead to you escaping with the stone and probably killing me a few days later."

"You sound unsatisfied." James stopped abruptly, like one who realizes a second too late he has forgotten something. "Don't tell me you are still in denial about what you saw in the mirror. Don't tell me you are still in denial that this is what you have always longed for!"

There was no point in questioning how he knew this. There was a possibility that James didn't even know that Sherlock had seen the mirror, but simply knew what he would have seen if he had done so, and there was little point in calling such a bluff.

"If I looked at it, I would probably see the same thing you did. You have always wanted this, haven't you? You are clever, Sherlock and you know it. But are you clever enough? If put to the test, could you really come through? Then again, it's not even about that"—James shook his shoulders lightly as though he were laughing without his mouth—"it's about that feeling, isn't it? You want a challenge. You want to bet your life and win."

Sherlock didn't respond. He couldn't respond. It was an impossible feeling, but the complete darkness of that night made him feel like that cursed mirror was standing right behind him, so close that he could almost feel its surface. The moon was beginning to come out from its hiding, but it was no longer welcomed. It gave off the feeling of a creature coming out of its grave.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, I'm the same. All I want is some fun. Is that too much to ask for? Then again," James sighed deeply, "there's no point in talking about what we already know. I'll let you have the opening move. What is your accusation?"

"Voldemort," said Sherlock. It sounded like a full sentence rather than a single word. "This case comes down to Voldemort and that cursed stone. Voldemort started off using his servant, Quirrel, to attempt to steal the stone, but soon gained another ally. That ally is, of course, James—no, you don't like to be called that, isn't that right?"

Sherlock cleared his throat dramatically, as though he were speaking to a large audience.

"That student's name is Jim Moriarty!"

Moriarty clapped his hands together and laughed. The laugh wasn't quite fake—but it wasn't quite genuine either. It was the kind of laugh you hear when somebody is modestly accepting a compliment.

"You praise me too much. You deserve half the credit, really. If you hadn't figured it out then I could only have played Voldemort for so long." Moriarty nodded multiple times and didn't stop nodding even after he continued talking. "It's true, it's all true. I actually threatened him with letters before showing up in person to ensure my safety. You know! The mind games…" Moriarty trailed off, stretching out that last syllable and failing to repress an amused laugh. "Ah, I'm getting ahead of myself now. Mind explaining what I just admitted?"

"Gladly. My next move will be to explain how and why you are helping Voldemort, so let's go back to the very beginning of this case. You figured out that the school has been hiding the Philosopher's Stone, which is fairly impressive if I do say so myself, but that's nothing compared to what you did with that knowledge. Once you realized Quirrel was the one attempting to steal it, you confronted him about it, but not directly. Maybe you sent him a letter or three so that he and Voldemort wouldn't be able to just get rid of you. You threatened to reveal Voldemort's secret while making sure he couldn't find out who you were. It didn't matter if you didn't have evidence. All you needed was to create pressure, to create some sort of fear deep inside Voldemort's heart. Even the most dangerous dark wizard of all time can't do so much as scratch you if he doesn't know who you are. It was a dangerous game, but his weakened state must have made it quite easy for you to hide from him.

"Then, after you had established yourself as a credible threat to Voldemort…this is where I have to engage on a little bit of guesswork in regards to the timeline, but it matters little and I'm probably correct in any case. I was aware of Quirrel's attempts at stealing the stone as well and threw myself at the three-headed dog to make sure that Dumbledore had to improve the security around the door. Voldemort probably wasn't too fond of that. Somebody was threatening to expose him to Dumbledore and it was getting harder and harder to steal the stone. Voldemort's only chance at regaining mortality seemed more and more like a dream. That's when you must have withdrawn your threats and said something about only sounding threatening because you were afraid of the letters being intercepted. Maybe you said you wanted to make sure he really was Voldemort. You swore your eternal loyalty to him and maybe he wasn't sure if he could trust you, but it sure beat having you tell Dumbledore about him.

"But then you started being useful. You came up with that little Red-Headed League scheme to get Percy Weasley, one of the Prefects in charge of keeping a lookout at the forbidden corridor, away from his job without needing to resort to violence (which would have shortened your stay in the school).You faked Dumbledore's handwriting and sent Percy letters about methods you speculated were enough to stop the gigantic dog and had him test them out. Quirrel would then follow your and Voldemort's instructions and play Percy to get him to tell him the info you needed. Voldemort probably didn't notice, but you probably took advantage of that moment to obtain information from him and Quirrel on what else was protecting the stone. A well placed 'Would you like me to get anything else besides a flute my Lord?" should have done the trick.

"The Red-Headed League was your fatal mistake, by the way. I suspected Quirrel for a long time, but only out of instinct. Your little trick gave me all the proof I needed to be convinced of it. Percy wouldn't tell me who the person in charge of the league was, but it must naturally be somebody who is red-headed as well. There are no red-headed teachers Hogwarts, which would seemingly make that assumption impossible. However, one improbable possibility remained."

Sherlock smiled and raised his index finger toward his own skull.

"And, as I'm sure you know, once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Thus, this possibility had to be correct. Quirrel is thought to be bald, but he always wears a turban. There could theoretically be anything under it, meaning he could have easily deceived Percy. It should have been easy enough for him to take off his turban and show some magically implanted red hair—no, I'm going too far. It's Percy; he becomes an idiot the moment authority comes into play. He probably just took Quirrel's word for it and assumed he was red-haired before going bald. The moment you had used the Red-Headed League scheme, I knew who the teacher aligning himself with Voldemort was. Earlier evidence also suggested that the culprit had to be a teacher, but let's not get into that again, it's old ground by now.

"I don't think your Red-Headed League scheme was wrong, however. It was daring and reckless, sure, but you didn't have much choice, did you?"

"No," responded Moriarty, with a certain bit of softness in his voice. "I did not. You forced my hand with your little showdown against the three-headed dog, my dear Sherlock. But please, continue. Your narrative is most interesting to me—seeing things from your point of view is so fun."

"Gladly. You'll recall that I was attacked by the dog, but this was supposed to be kept secret. I think even Harry took note of this fact. The natural conclusion was that a teacher(who by this time I already knew to be Quirrel) had leaked this fact—but why? The question haunted me for a while, but it all made sense once Hagrid said that many different students had come to ask him about the dog. It was a natural response from the students, and that's what the mastermind behind the scenes was counting on. It was a smokescreen. He understood perfectly well that Quirrel's connection to Voldemort could become public knowledge any day and he wanted to make sure that if he went to investigate about the gigantic dog, he would have been camouflaged by a hundred or so of other curious students. The mastermind may have been worried that somebody like me would expose Voldemort's scheme and his connection to it.

"This also raised a second, important point. The faked Dumbledore letters sent to Percy indicated that Voldermort's team had an idea of how to get past the dog, which means that they talked to Hagrid about it—but Hagrid only mentioned students coming to talk to him. That's when I realized that Quirrel wasn't the only person working for Voldemort. He had a student working for him who—little did Voldemort know—was planning on betraying him from the very start. I'm sure you didn't expect me to figure out it was you instead of some other student, but some fact checking made it very easy. All I had to do was ask Hagrid who actually bothered to pay attention to what he said—he was a bit wounded by the thought of other people being uninterested in the dog past some vague curiosity, but answered very quickly. I didn't have the time to do this next step, but I'll tell you what I had planned just for the sake of completeness. I wasn't entirely sure it was you until just now, which is why I didn't present all of this to Dumbledore, but I planned on monitoring students who were in constant contact with Quirrel in order to eventually narrow my suspect list down to one or two students. Not many people like him, so it wouldn't take too long.

"This plan worked for a while, but as I said it was a reckless plan from the very start—you had to work quick to get the results you wanted before it all fell apart and yet you have taken months. You and Voldemort must have rushed things tonight because somebody caught on to the Red-Headed League scheme, but that's not going to be enough. Harry Potter should be having a showdown with Voldemort at this very moment, the same Voldemort that couldn't beat him when he was a baby. If anything, this Voldemort is even weaker than the one who failed to assassinate Harry ten years ago. Now, I'll tell you what's going to happen. Harry will defeat this weakened Voldemort and Dumbledore will keep the stone safe.

"Ah, but I haven't proved your connection to the case yet, have I? This is where your motive comes in—you are right. We are the same. We both want that feeling of putting our lives on the line and coming out on top. That's why you helped Voldemort with this entire plan, because you planned on betraying him from the very beginning. You never planned on giving him the stone, did you? You wanted to use it for yourself."

Moriarty stopped for a moment to consider everything Sherlock had said. He looked at the moon as though it helped him concentrate, and then, with the kind of tone one uses to give partial credit, shook his head and said, "Well…you are mostly right, save for two things. I suppose you deserve full marks for someone so young, maybe we can have a better showdown when you are older. But again, you are wrong about two vital things. The first one is motive, I never intended to use the stone, you see. My original intention was to break it so that I would have the knowledge that I prevented Voldemort from coming back to life. I just wanted to defeat him, you see, for both the sake of my reasonably sized ego and my potential reputation among certain types of wizards."

"Your insanity is of no concern to me, but what's the second thing you are referring to?"

"Ah, you said something about me and Voldemort trying and failing to steal the stone tonight, didn't you?" Moriarty took a small, spherical object from his pocket. "I stole it two months ago."

* * *

><p><em><strong>I'm sorry for the time it took for this update to come out. On the bright side, I have a good portion of the next update already written so that's not going to take nearly as long as this one did. For the sake of a small preview, this chapter focused on Sherlock, but the next chapter is going to be mostly focused on Harry. I promise I will never take so long to update the story again and I hope this chapter was fun to read.<strong>_


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